| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
13 seats to the European Parliament | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Turnout | 1,841,335 (59.0% 8.8pp) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Colours indicate winning party. |
Members of the European Parliament for Ireland | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Women | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The 2004 European Parliament election in Ireland was the Irish component of the 2004 European Parliament election. The voting was held on Friday, 11 June 2004. The election coincided with the 2004 local elections. The election was conducted under the single transferable vote.
YouTube Encyclopedic
-
1/3Views:6 848 7841 757653
-
Why the UK Election Results are the Worst in History.
-
Managing the Brexit Challenge: Ireland, the EU, and Transatlantic Relationships
-
Elections in De Facto States
Transcription
Hello Internet The UK had an election we need to talk about because after the debates finished, the people voted and the ballots tallied the results were this: But parliament ended up looking like this: Which isn't, exactly, representative. And by not exactly, I mean at all. Red earned 30% of the vote and 36% of the seats, which is sort of close, but the rest is madness: Orange earned 8% of the vote but got one eighth of that while Yellow's 5% just about doubled, and purple earned 13% and got squat. Meanwhile blue's 37% of the people booted to 51% of the seats in parliament. The blue boost is even bigger when you consider that 51% of the seats gives basically 100% the control. How'd this happen? In the UK -- national elections aren't really national, they're a bunch of local elections. The UK is divided into constituencies, each of which elects one member of parliament (M.P.) to represent them. This local / national divide is where the trouble begins. Imagine a parliament with just three constituencies, and it's easy to see how it wouldn't always align with citizens. Some people think this sort of result is fine -- “it's all *about* winning local elections,” they’ll say. “Each M.P. represents their constituency.” And while the imbalance in this example is dumb, but it's the same problem in the real election and this same argument is given, but there are two more problems with it in reality land. 1) Few citizens have any idea who their MP is, they just know what party they voted for -- what party they want to represent their views on the national level. And pretending like it's a local election is a bit disingenuous. -- in practice it's an election for now the nation will run -- not really for who is going to represent a tiny part of it. and even if it were 2) The individual constituencies are worse at representing their citizens than parliament. Indulge this spreadsheet-loving nerd for a moment, will you? The difference between what a party earned at the polls and what they got in parliament is the amount of misrepresentation error. If we calculate all the errors for all the parties and add them up we can say the Parliament as a whole has 47% percentage points of misrepresentation error. That sounds bad looks like a utopian rainbow of diversity compared to any local election because the local elections have *one* winner. Out of the 650 constituencies 647 have a higher representation error than parliament. These are the only three that don't and they're really unusual for having so many of a single kind of voter in one place. Most places look the The Wrekin which is dead in the middle a mere one-hundred and one points off. Note that the winning candidate didn't reach a majority here. Which means more than half of constituencies elected their MP with a minority of voters. The worst is Belfast South at the bottom of the list. Hilariously unrepresentative. Less than a quarter of the voters get to speak for the entire place in parliament. This is the the lowest percentage an M.P. has ever been elected by. So when people argue that the UK election is a bunch of local elections 1) people don't act like it, and 2) It's even more of an argument that the elections are broken because they're worse on this level. These local elections are unrepresentative because of the terrible 'First Past the Post' voting system -- which I have complained mightily about and won't repeat everything here -- go watch the video -- but TL;DR it only 'works' when citizens are limited to two choices. Voting for any party except the biggest makes it more likely the biggest will win by a minority -- which is exactly what happened. That citizens keep voting for smaller parties despite knowing the result is against their strategic interests demonstrates the citizenry wants diverse representation -- but that successes is the very thing that's made this the most unrepresentative parliament in the history of the UK. People happy with the results argue the system is working fine -- of course they do. Their team won. Government isn't a sport where a singular 'winner' must be determined. It's a system to make rules that everyone follows and so, we need a system where everyone can agree the process is fair even if the results don't go in their favor. If you support a system that disenfranchises people you don't like and turbo-franchises people you do -- then it doesn't look like you sport representative democracy, it looks like you support a kind of dictatorship light. Where a small group of people (including you) makes the rules for everyone. But as it is now, on election day the more people express what they want the worse the system looks which makes them disengaged at best or angry at worst and GEE I CAN'T IMAGINE WHY. This is fixable, there are many, many better ways the UK could vote -- here are two that even keep local representatives. And fixing voting really matters, because this is a kind of government illegitimacy score -- and it's been going up and may continue to do so unless this fundamentally broken voting system is changed.
Constituency revision
Since the 1999 European Parliament election, Ireland's entitlement had fallen from 15 seats to 13 seats due to European Union expansion and some constituencies boundaries and names were changed.
- Munster constituency lost County Clare and was reduced from 4 seats to 3 and renamed South
- Connacht–Ulster gained County Clare and was renamed North-West
- Leinster had no boundary changes but was reduced from 4 seats to 3 and renamed East
- Dublin was unchanged
Results
The election was organised by city/county council area, the basis for the local elections being held simultaneously. Voters received different-coloured ballot papers for the European election, city/county council election, and a constitutional referendum, all of which went into the same ballot box and were separated by colour once the boxes arrived at the count centre for the city/county. Not all voters received all ballots as the franchises differ. The European ballots were all counted in one city/county, necessitating a second transportation of the separated ballots from the other city/county centres. For example, the East ballots were counted in Navan, County Meath.[1]
Party | European party | Party Leader | 1st Pref Vote | % | ±% | Seats | ± | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fine Gael | EPP-ED | Enda Kenny | 494,412 | 27.8 | +3.2 | 5 | +1 | |
Fianna Fáil | UEN | Bertie Ahern | 524,504 | 29.5 | −9.1 | 4 | −2 | |
Sinn Féin | GUE/NGL | Gerry Adams | 197,715 | 11.1 | +4.8 | 1 | +1 | |
Labour Party | PES | Pat Rabbitte | 188,132 | 10.5 | +1.8 | 1 | ±0 | |
Green Party | Greens/EFA | Trevor Sargent | 76,917 | 4.3 | −2.4 | 0 | −2 | |
Socialist Party | Joe Higgins | 23,218 | 1.3 | +0.5 | 0 | ±0 | ||
Independent | 275,870 | 15.5 | +1.2 | 2 | ±0 | |||
Total | 1,780,768 | 100 | — | 13 | –2 |
MEPs elected
Voting details
Constituency | Electorate | Turnout | Spoilt | Valid Poll | Quota | Seats | Candidates |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dublin | 821,723 | 435,136 (52.9%) | 13,239 (3.0%) | 421,897 | 84,380 | 4 | 12 |
East | 806,598 | 471,895 (58.5%) | 18,717 (3.9%) | 453,178 | 113,295 | 3 | 13 |
North-West | 688,804 | 435,910 (63.3%) | 14,487 (3.3%) | 421,423 | 105,356 | 3 | 9 |
South | 802,359 | 498,394 (62.1%) | 14,124 (2.8%) | 484,270 | 121,068 | 3 | 10 |
Total | 3,119,484 | 1,841,335 (59.0%) | 60,567 (3.3%) | 1,780,768 | — | 13 | 44 |
Seats
Constituency | Area | Seats | Pop. | per Seat |
---|---|---|---|---|
Dublin | County Dublin | 4 | 1.1m | 275k |
East | Leinster less County Dublin | 3 | 1m | 333k |
South | Munster less County Clare | 3 | 1m | 333k |
North-West | Connacht plus counties Cavan, Donegal, Monaghan, Clare | 3 | 800k | 270k |
Total | 13 | 3.9m | 300k |
See also
- List of members of the European Parliament for Ireland, 2004–09 – List ordered by constituency
- For the Northern Ireland European Parliament elections, see 2004 UK European Parliament election.
References
- ^ Murphy, Tom (10 June 2004). "91,000 people are eligible to vote". Wicklow People. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
External links
- ElectionsIreland.org – 2004 European Parliament (Ireland) election results
- European Election News by European Election Law Association (Eurela)