NUI Seanad election saw the three incumbents – Michael McDowell, Rónán Mullen and Alice Mary Higgins – returned easily. TCD race turned into a nailbiter with Tiglin founder Aubrey McCarthy narrowly pippin the Greens' Hazel Chu - just 31 votes – but with a recount requested, to be ruled on at 9:30am - ThreadSky

gavreilly.com • 28 days ago

NUI Seanad election saw the three incumbents – Michael McDowell, Rónán Mullen and Alice Mary Higgins – returned easily.

TCD race turned into a nailbiter with Tiglin founder Aubrey McCarthy narrowly pippin the Greens' Hazel Chu - just 31 votes – but with a recount requested, to be ruled on at 9:30am

Comments

simondoyle.bsky.social•28 days ago

I’m not sure I’m seeing her overtaking him given the transfers.
I’m baffled that there were two Greens running where one of them could have handily taken 3rd place.
Not to mention the crappy turnout!
Let’s see if the new constituency will be any better managed (and better advertised)

ray-cunningham.bsky.social•27 days ago

That assumes that everyone who voted for Hazel would vote for Ossian, and vice versa. And if that were true, when one was eliminated 100% of their votes would transfer to the other.

simondoyle.bsky.social•27 days ago

True that Smith's transfers went 2:1:1 to Chu, MacNeill, McCarthy, but I would like to think that a single Green focussed candidate (and here I would include Sadhbh O'Neill) would have had a good chance of picking up the third seat.

ray-cunningham.bsky.social•27 days ago

I mean, it was close enough that it might have happened. But votes rarely combine that easily.
(Never mind the difficulty of telling two candidates - and their teams - that they should campaign for the third rather than run themselves)

simondoyle.bsky.social•27 days ago

Herding cats comes to mind.

aveteresa.bsky.social•28 days ago

Not well advertised for registration as a lot depended on your alma mater letting you know about it, so that colleges that don’t actively manage alumni already - well, I know a few folk who didn’t know about it at all til I asked them had they registered yet: zero contact from their HEI.

darragh.rogan.ie•28 days ago

It's changing for next time around, and agreed - poor enough comms. I had to prompt TUD to let people know (and there was a deadline too)

aveteresa.bsky.social•28 days ago

Some newly qualifying bodies are small & would never really have done a lot of alumni outreach; some have been recently subsumed under new umbrellas, which is an administrative challenge - even TUD is only 6yo, with Covid disruption for most of those years. Needed more Govt advertising, I think.

darragh.rogan.ie•28 days ago

Absolutely. And the website too gives one cyber "concerns" - no prominent Irish government logos, not on a https://gov.ie domain - only for it was referenced in a https://gov.ie press release I wouldn't have even trusted it.
It's like the government don't want this responsibility yo take back from the universities!

aveteresa.bsky.social•28 days ago

And those registering are just supposed to know their old student numbers 😂

mnicearbhaill.bsky.social•27 days ago

agree - some graduates seem to think that their award may not qualify them as it might not say degree but now it would be classed as Level 8. Needs better promotion.

aveteresa.bsky.social•27 days ago

It can’t but have muddied the water that you were supposed to register by 23 Jan THIS YEAR, WHILE a TCD/NUI election was ongoing (if you’ve never had the vote you might well just glance past the word Seanad in the news). I think they definitely need to reopen registration & run a strong campaign.

vincenth1.bsky.social•28 days ago

Well, the rest of them weren't all that inspiring, or them for that matter. It's an odd day when MMCD and a Mogg wannabe were the most interesting. I had the ballot sitting on the desk for ages before filling it in.

firstdail.bsky.social•28 days ago

NUI ballots only arrived in Belfast on Monday. Too late

mazfff.bsky.social•27 days ago

Just joined Bluesky to ask you this question ... Can you please do an explainer with smarties on how the fractional voting thing works? I'm so confused!! (Though maybe there aren't enough smarties in the world for this?)

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