Making sure your vote counts

WHEN you visit your polling station, you will more than likely be known to the presiding officer but just in case, it would be no harm to have some form of identification with you. When you get your ballot paper, make sure there is a stamp on it. The presiding officer stamps each paper but sometimes the stamp does not mark the paper. Everything else can be in order but without the stamp it will be classed as an invalid vote.

Place 1, 2, 3 and so on in the box beside the candidates of your choice. You can vote just number 1 if you wish or you can continue down the list as far as you wish. If that means giving some numbers to candidates from different parties that is your entitlement and there is nothing wrong with that.
Try to keep each number in its own box. The main concern is that the voter’s intention is clear. If the people counting cannot be sure which box your number 1 should be in then the vote will be counted as spoiled but if you only make a tiny mark outside the box it should not matter.
If you fill in 1, 2, 3 correctly but make a mistake by, for example, giving two number 5s, then your number 1, 2, 3 and 4 will be valid votes but if it comes to count your number 5 it will be declared spoiled at that stage.
You should further remember that apart from showing your preference, if you put any other mark or writing on your ballot paper it will be deemed a spoiled vote. Ballot papers marked A, B, C and so on or I, II, III, IV… are also valid.
If you do make a mistake and vote for the wrong person by accident you are entitled to return that ballot paper to the president officer, tell them that you made a mistake and be issued with a new paper.
Everything on the day is geared to enable you to cast your vote for your choice of candidates.

At the count
All the votes are counted to give the total poll. The spoiled votes are discarded and the total remaining is the valid poll. The returning officer then calculates the quota. The quota can be described as the finishing line. It is the figure that a candidate must reach to be elected.
Here in Clare, we will elect four TDs. If there is a valid poll of 50,000 it would be easy to say, make the quota 12,500, but that would not be practical or fair. There will always be non-transferable votes in each count so it would be impossible for four people to reach that quota.
Therefore, the quota is set at a lower figure, which can be attainable by four candidates but which cannot be reached by five.
With four seats you divide the valid poll by five and then add on one, so with 50,000, divide by five and add one to get a quota of 10,001. This quota multiplied by four equals 40,004, which is attainable for four candidates but not for five. You cannot have 10,001 by five because that equals 50,005 and there are only 50,000 votes. The quota is the lowest possible figure that can be reached by only four candidates.
For a three-seat constituency, you divide by four and add one and for a five-seat constituency divide by six and add one.

Eliminations
When the counting is complete, this gives the result of the first count. If somebody has reached the quota and has gone over the finishing line then they are deemed elected. If nobody has reached the quota then the lowest candidate is eliminated.
Their votes are examined and where there is a number two marked, the vote is given to that person.
Where there is no number two then the vote is left aside and described as non-transferable, which means what it says on the tin – it cannot be transferred to anybody. The vote can only be used when the voter has expressed a choice by putting in a number.
Each remaining candidate now has two separate bundles of votes the ones they got in the first count and the ones they got on transfer. This is called a distribution and the result of this gives the second count.
If nobody has still reached the quota then same process is repeated and the candidate with the next lowest number of votes is eliminated.
This time, however, there are two sets of votes to examine – the votes they got on the first count and the transfers they received on the second count.
In each case, the votes go to the person with the next lowest number marked on the ballot paper. This gives us the result of the third count.
You will occasionally see more than one candidate eliminated together. This happens where their combined votes are not enough to change the order of elimination. For example, where the bottom candidates in an election were A with 200 votes, B with 300 votes, C with 1,000 votes. If A was eliminated on his own and all the votes went to B, he would not have enough to catch up with C so A and B are both eliminated together in order to speed up the process.

Surpluses
If a candidate has more than the quota, the extra number of votes are deemed surplus to requirements and are distributed to the other candidates.
They are only left with the amount needed for a quota. When a candidate is elected on the first count and has a surplus, then all the votes are examined and the number 2s counted.
The surplus is then divided in the same ratio as the number twos. Whatever share a candidate has of the number twos then they get that share of the surplus.
For example, let the quota be 10,000 and let a candidate have 12,000. The surplus is 2,000. If another candidate has gotten 3,000 of the number 2s that is 25% so they get 25% of the surplus and are given another 500 votes. If some of the voting papers have only No. 1 marked then they cannot be transferred so you will find non-transferable votes listed.
As the counts go on, each remaining candidate gets a new bundle of votes – from the first count, the second count, third count and so on.
When somebody is elected on the second or later counts the surplus is caused not by their own original votes but by the bundle that puts them over the quota. That means that when their surplus is distributed it comes from the last bundle they got and it is these that are examined, not the original number 2s.
If somebody is 100 votes short of the quota and then gets a transfer of 500, the surplus votes are in the 500, not in their original vote, so it is these 500 that are examined for the distribution of the surplus and not the votes that they already had. This would explain why you might be surprised when some surpluses seem to scatter across different parties.
As a general rule, surpluses are distributed before candidates are eliminated but that is not always the case.
If the surplus to be distributed is not enough to affect the order of elimination or the order of election then it can be held over and distributed later.
At late stages, surpluses need not be distributed if they could not affect the outcome.