Election 09: Final Figures

We pulled these from the election discussion on boards.ie.


President
Total Poll 2325
Spoilt votes 33
Valid Poll 2291
Quota 1147

Conway, Mark 268
Dillon-McLoughlin, Ruán 1467
Gardiner, Eamon 594

Dillon McLoughlin elected on first count.


VP/Education Officer
Total Poll 2299
Spoilt votes 65
Valid Poll 2234
Quota 1118

Collison-Ryan, David James 538 599 731
Finnerty, Aoife 941 1030 1263
Kerins, Emma 487 556
Thomas Huw 313
Non-transferable 94 191

Finnerty elected on third count.

VP/Campaigns & Services Officer
Total Poll 2266
Spoilt votes 101
Valid poll 2165
Quota 1083

Bourke, Darragh 383
Dempsey, Fergal 1278
Lawler, Michelle 553

Dempsey elected on first count.

VP/Communications Officer
Total poll 2275
Spoilt votes 30
Valid poll 2245
Quota 1123

Dolphin, David 1080
Ni Raghallaigh, Aoife 1196

Ní Raghallaigh elected on first count.


Plebiscite on alternatives to exchequer funded third level tuition fees.
Total poll 2279
Spoilt votes 187
Valid poll 2092

Option 1 666 31.8%
A loan system, repayable at a future date, based on the future salary of each student reaching a certain level

Option 2 187 8.9%
A graduate tax whereby all graduates pay a premium percentage of their wage for the entirety of their working life

Option 3 152 7.3%
A levy on all income earners, regardless of attending a third level course i.e. an increase in general taxation

Option 4 1087 52.0%
I am opposed to alternatives to exchequer-funded third level tuition fees.


The spin has already started on the plebiscite results.

What we're a bit concerned about is that the SU executive in the guise of Pa O'Brien promised that second preferences would be counted, recorded and taken into account. What we have is a shambles of a count, with pro-fees campaigners saying that 48% of students are OK with the idea of fees, anti-fees campaigners saying that 52% of students voted against fees and saying that's a clear mandate. Both the SU and the rabble-rousing FEE - which appears to stand for "AKA Members of Sociality Youth and friends" - are primarily responsible for this waste of time. The SU for insisting that the current situation be included as an option on the ballot paper and FEE for insisting that the current situation be included as an option on the ballot paper. Yes, we said it twice. FEE have also declared that the poll was flawed. Of course it was, you shitehawks, you're the ones that flawed it.

So what do the plebiscite results actually mean? We're not sure. If the second preferences for option 4 ("the country's fucked and all's well") had been counted, as Pa O'Brien promised, we'd have a better idea of what the preference of students was in the event of fees being introduced. Because this was the point of the plebiscite in the first place, this just might have been a good idea. FEE are adamant that this shows that 52% of students are against fees. Because they were the only ones bothering to run a campaign at all, they might have tipped a few more votes into their side of the barrell than the other side, even if as we think, they also lost a few votes for being annoying shitehawks. After all the shouting, we think we've got a situation where more than half of students don't want fees, which is about 40% lower than we might have thought, so perhaps AKA Socialist Youth really annoyed people, and a situation where 32% of the options that were counted want a graduate loan system if fees are introduced. We are pretty sure that results indicate that almost no-one wants a graduate tax or to have everyone pay more tax. That looks like the only certainty.

From the first "but" after the plebiscite was proposed to the final non-counting of the second preferences - another promise broken by this year's SU executive - the entire thing was a fuckup. They should be very proud.