Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

One of the over looked aspects of the last week was the calling of the election for the 11th of March. The significance of that date is that it is a Friday. Now traditionally Irish general elections are on a Thursday. Back around the time of the last general election we started a campaign called [...]

Back in the heady day of the Celtic Tiger. We here on Irish Election ran a campaign to get the day of the election moved away from Thursdays(loads of posts here).  Getting 1381 signatures. We got on radio and in the media. Fine Gael even brought a motion in the dail up. We even had [...]

In a packed Dail chamber, Brian Cowen was elected Taoiseach of Ireland after a vote to choose between him, Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore. The vote was won by 88 to 76. He was nominated by Bertie Ahern himself however it only became quite raucous as Mary Harney seconded Cowen’s nomination and defended the government’s [...]

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 [...]

For us here at Irishelection.com one of the big issues of last year was the fact that the election was going to be held on a Thursday and not on a Saturday or at least a Friday to aid the most people to go to the booths. We got 1381 signatures to stop the “temporal [...]

One of the reason’s the government gave against Saturday voting was that it would interfere with people’s religious devotion.  So what do they do instead of interfering with religious devotion? They put it on the Jewish festival of Shavuot.  For the second time according to Fine Gael. So that means that the religion part of [...]

Niall Murray in the Irish Examiner again goes on about Thursday voting. Making the point.

Seanachie, of the superlative Pleasures of Underachievement highlights something that perhaps should be getting as much prominence as the Weekend vote issue but has, so far, managed to go completely under the electoral radar.

They’ve announced it. The general election is set to be held on May 24th. I won’t be voting. This is not because of apathy. This is not because the difference between the two possible coalitions is minimal. This will be because of what one angry disenfranchised voted called Temporal Gerrymandering.

You can sign the petition here Currently1152 signatures including Fianna Fail big wig Senator Mary O’Rourke who issued support in the Seanad previously. The Dail Debated the weekend voting bill again last night. Again the same fuck up was made. This time by Sinn Fein. You should read the debate it is interesting to see [...]

This is getting beyond ridiculous. Am I the only one who thinks Comrade Bertski is making a complete mockery of the rules by stalling on naming a date? Yesterday, bold as brass, he was able to announce that he’s going to wait until the Dáil gets through a lengthy programme of bill-passing before he chooses [...]

Dail Debate of Weekend voting bill is online. Read how Dick Roche’s Christmas’s  came at once. You can sign the petition here

You can sign the petition here Some rebuttal to the Minister as Fine Gael fluffed their lines a little.

Fine Gael are some twats. They had the arguments. They had the people behind them. They had the logic. We set out the points even in bullet form. It was all teed up for them. They could not miss. And what they do. They fuck up. In the debate on weekend voting. They made most [...]

Trevor Sargent mentioned the petition on Today FM today. All though attributing it to rockthevote (who don’t support it). Anyway if anyone ended up here. You can Sign here Edit: Cian rang in and got the petition mentioned. Already 40 extra signatures. Edit 2: Fine Gael’s Bill for Weekend voting is being debated in the [...]

Update by Cian: I emailed the party whips to request that this bill is subject to a free vote on Tuesday night. This is because an issue like this is beyond party politics and actually materially affects the election, turnout and democracy. If your interested in doing the same the whips are Billy Kelleher (FF), [...]