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More temporal gerrymandering
Read more about: Education, Referenda, Vote Saturday, Youth
Simon had given the most recent account of the phenomenon: the government toying with days of the week and seasons when scheduling elections and referenda for political advantage. Now Bertie has a new twist: a Lisbon vote in June, on a day yet to be scheduled, but in the middle of when many first-time voters will be taking their Leaving Cert. Others might have some college commitments. This one is especially bizarre as it’s surely easiest to sell young people on the benefits of further European integration. As Sun Tsu said, “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat”.
Even odder when you consider that the most recent polling had the 18-25 age bracket as one of the higher ‘Yes’ votes, a fact a number of political youth wings have sought to draw attention to.
I see now that Bertie told Alan Shatter that he was thinking of a day when most of the Leaving Cert exams would be over. But it’s not clear that he had thought of the Leaving Cert problem before Shatter asked him. But mid-June onwards is hardly the time to be maximizing the youth vote. Exams, summer jobs etc. It’s an extraordinary level of messing about what should be a simple thing to schedule.
I am waiting for the friday or saturday poll day.
irony being that the last Nice II referendum was held at a weekend in order to boost the ol youth turnout.
I kinda head the feeling earlier that we were going to see a string out strategy over the first 6 months. As long as Bertie is still Taoiseach well then he is still Taoiseach. The joint houses speech in april, well okay cant do anything to him until after that and then well we cant do it before the Lisbon treaty in case that fs the thing up, treaty keeps on drifting from May now to mid June. Looking to avoid an economic backlash would call for an earlier vote rather than later; looking to keep the bert in power for a bit longer so that he can crest the summer and the court challenge etc and maybe ride the whole mess out. Ultimately does the Bert give two sh!tes about Lisbon if he is dumped from office. I think probably not. Considering that Coewn does not quite want to fill those shoes yet then maybe the Bert could have leeway to play with a bit. Either way I think the focus of govt. is not on securing the treaty as much as you would expect.