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But How Many Candidates Should We Have in Donegal? Numbers of Nominees and Electoral Efficiency in Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Richard S. Katz
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Extract

When the results of an analysis fly in the face both of generally accepted theory and the practice of professional politicians, it is usually a good idea to reconsider whether the point is really established. Such is the case with the small literature regarding the effects of nomination strategies on the outcomes of Dáil Éireann elections that has developed in these pages since the publication of an article by Cohan, McKinlay and Mughan (‘The Used Vote and Electoral Outcomes: The Irish General Election of 1973’, this Journal, v (1975), 363–83). The original article made several valuable points, including a demonstration that patterns of transfer votes may be more important than the distribution of first preference votes in determining the result of elections under the single transferable vote (STV) system, and an extension of the wasted vote concept to STV, majority, and proportional elections. Unfortunately, the notes that have followed have all focused on the most questionable conclusion of the original article, that overnomination hurts a party's chances of electing the maximum possible number of deputies.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , January 1981 , pp. 117 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

1 On this point, see also Katz, Richard S., ‘Parties and Electoral Systems: A Theory and the Case of Britain, Eire, and Italy’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1974), Chap. 3.Google Scholar

2 Cohan, A. S. and McKinlay, R. D., ‘The Used Vote and Electoral Outcomes: The Irish General Election of 1977’, British Journal of Political Science, VIII (1978), 492–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lijphart, Arend and Irwin, Galen A., ‘Nomination Strategies in the Irish STV System: The Dail Elections of 1969, 1973 and 1977’, British Journal of Political Science, IX (1979), 362–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cohan, A. S., ‘Rejoinder’, British Journal of Political Science, IX (1979), 369–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 For a complete description of the Irish electoral system, see Chubb, Basil, The Government and Politics of Ireland (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 349–52.Google Scholar

4 Cohan, , McKinlay, and Mughan, , ‘The Used Vote and Electoral Outcomes’, p. 369.Google Scholar

5 As Lijphart, and Irwin, , ‘Nomination Strategies in the Irish STV System’, (p. 363)Google Scholar point out, this is not logically necessary since concentration of votes on one candidate could still leave a large surplus to be transferred. Cohan's defence, with the example of Lynch, Jack, ‘Rejoinder’, (p. 369)Google Scholar, hardly saves his point when one observes that in 1977 Fianna Fáil lost more votes in the transfer of Lynch's surplus than in any other count in the Cork City constituency.

6 Lijphart, and Irwin, , ‘Nomination Strategies in the Irish STV System’, p. 365.Google Scholar

7 Lijphart, and Irwin, , ‘Nomination Strategies in the Irish STV System’, p. 368.Google Scholar

8 Cohan, , McKinlay, and Mughan, , ‘The Used Vote and Electoral Outcomes’, p. 370.Google Scholar

9 Cohan, , McKinlay, and Mughan, , ‘The Used Vote and Electoral Outcomes’, pp. 377, 382Google Scholar. Actually, this statement is misleading because it suggests that transfers that should go to a candidate who has been elected or eliminated become non-transferable. In fact, they go to the next preference expressed.

10 Fine Gael and Labour votes were analysed separately, even in 1973 and 1977 when they were in coalition. As I have argued elsewhere, the ability to retain their separate identities and electorates was one of the factors encouraging the coalition's formation (Katz, , ‘Parties and Electoral System’, p. 102Google Scholar). Moreover, there was no more transferral of votes between the coalition partners than usual until all the candidates of the party of origin had been either elected or eliminated.

11 Lijphart, and Irwin, , ‘Nomination Strategies in the Irish STV System’, pp. 368–9.Google Scholar

12 Sacks, Paul M., The Donegal Mafia (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1976), Chap. 8.Google Scholar

13 The problem of undernomination is discussed in Gallagher, Michael, ‘Candidate Selection in Ireland: The Impact of Localism and the Electoral System’, British Journal of Political Science, X (1980), 489–503CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a similar argument regarding overnomination in Italy, see Katz, Richard S. and Bardi, Luciano, ‘Voto di preferenza e recambio del personale parlamentare in Italia (1963–1976)’, Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politico, IX (1979), 71–95.Google Scholar