Thanks guys!
OK, so that really is it from us. Our live blog peaked at 1,112 concurrent users tonight. Thanks everyone for reading. Check out our homepage for articles on the winners of each race.
McNulty celebrates win:
That makes it the third year in a row that The University Times has accurately predicted the results of every race – and the first year we did it without polling genius John Keating, who is busy being a graduate, but still working in the polling industry, just in national politics. This year, Conor Parle did our data modelling – and continues our prediction success.
We predicted that he would win with 50.9 per cent. Instead, he won with 49.3 per cent in the final count.
We predicted that McNulty would reach quota on the first count. This wasn’t the case but we were still within our three per cent margin of error.
So, that rounds off this year’s TCDSU elections. But before go, how about we look at the accuracy of our poll results for the president race.
Final count of the president race:
Stephen Carty: 1,046 (28.1%)
Kieran McNulty: 1,851 (49.8%)
Daniel O’Brien: 701 (18.9%)
Non-transferable votes: 105 (2.8%)
Kieran McNulty has been elected without reaching the quota – just eight votes off – as Carty and O’Brien combined are less than his total.
McNulty just missed the quota to be elected on the first count, coming in at 27 votes short of 1,859.
Results from the president race:
Total valid votes:
Stephen Carty: 1,032 (27.8%)
Kieran McNulty: 1,832 (49.3%)
Daniel O’Brien: 677 (18.2%)
RON: 176 (4.7%)
Kieran McNulty is just short of the quota, which is 1,859 – so it will proceed to a second count.
We are expecting the results of the first count of the presidential race shortly.
In the education race, our poll predicted that Ó’Faoilleacháin would win with 65 per cent of first-preference votes. Instead, he received 59.4% – still winning comfortably, and still allowing us to say we predicted the outcome correctly.
O’Faoilléacháin celebrates win:
In the welfare race, we predicted Ní Lochlainn would win with 60.3 per cent, which was actually only 0.1 per cent off the actual result tonight.
Counting for the presidential race has begun but it will be a while yet. In the meantime, let’s look at the poll results for welfare and education.
Ní Lochlainn celebrates win:
Results from the education race:
Total valid votes:
Patrick Higgins: 1,246 (35.5%)
Dale O’Faoilléacháin: 2,083 (59.4%)
RON: 178 (5.1%)
O’Faoilléacháin has been elected on the first count.
So, it is actually education that’s coming this time.
Results from the welfare race:
Total valid votes:
Aoibhinn Ní Lochlainn: 2,257 (60.3%)
Eamonn Redmond: 891 (23.8%)
Andrew Wafer: 530 (14.2%)
RON: 67 (1.8%)
Ní Lochlainn has been elected on the first count.
It looks like we’re getting results of the education race first, which should come soon.
In the welfare race, it looks like Ní Lochlainn will have a landslide victory, with our poll predicting her to win with 60.4 per cent of first preferences.
All photos this evening are taken by our Deputy Photo Editor, Sam McAllister.
In education, we predicted that Ó Faoilleacháin will win comfortably with 65 per cent of first preferences
So, the ents race is another one in which we predicted the winner. We predicted landslides for Ní Lochlainn and O’Faoilléacháin in welfare and education, respectively.
Counting has begun for the education and welfare races.
Padraic Rowley celebrates win:
Results from the final count of the ents race:
Caolán Maher: 1,416 (38.3%)
Padraic Rowley: 1,873 (50.6%)
Non-transferable votes: 248 (6.7%)
Padraic Rowley has been elected Ents Officer.
Padraic Rowley waits for results:
The quota in this race is 1,850 votes (or 50 per cent plus one vote) – so it’s expected that Browne’s transfers, which we predicted will largely go to Rowley, will elect him.
Results from the third count of the ents race:
Katie Browne: 929 (25.1%)
Caolán Maher: 1,138 (30.8%)
Rowley: 1,500 (40.6%)
Non-transferable votes: 165 (4.5%)
Katie Browne has been eliminated, and it will proceed to a fourth count.
Results of the second count of the ents race:
Katie Browne: 775 (21%)
Caolán Maher: 1,048 (28.3%)
Grace O’Boyle: 494 (13.4%)
Padraic Rowley: 1,346 (36.4%)
Non-transferable votes: 36 (1%)
Grace O’Boyle has been eliminated, and it will proceed to a third count.
Results of the first count of the ents race:
Total valid votes:
Katie Browne: 770 (20.8%)
Caolán Maher: 1,046 (28.3%)
Grace O’Boyle: 490 (13.2%)
Padraic Rowley: 1,338 (36.2%)
RON: 55 (1.5%)
RON has been eliminated and votes will be distributed as no candidate has reached the quota.
Our poll predicted that Padraic Rowley would receive 42.1 per cent of first preferences, and that Caolán Maher would receive 36.1 per cent. It really could go either way, however. Our transfer analysis predicted, though, that Rowley would receive more transfers, and would go on to be elected – but this could be close.
The first count of the ents race is nearly finished. We’re expecting results shortly.
And here is Sinéad Baker celebrating. Still extremely impressive to have nearly 3,000 students elect you to a position:
But we were a bit off when it came to predicting the editor race. We predicted Baker would receive 91.2 per cent of the vote. Instead, she received only 84.8 per cent of the vote – and that’s quite a bit outside our margin of error. This is similar to last year’s predictions in the uncontested race, suggesting that while we seem to be bang on in contested ones, there needs to be some adjustment to compensate for the number of RONs.
So, our poll predicted that Glen Byrne would win with 56.7 per cent of the vote. The actual result was 54.2 per cent – within our 3 per cent margin of error.
The lull in between the rush of those two races, and the ents race, which they’ve just started counting, is probably a good time to compare the real results with our poll’s predictions.
Glen Byrne celebrating:
Results from the Editor of The University Times race:
Total valid votes: 3,487
Sinéad Baker: 2,957 (84.8%)
RON: 530 (15.2%)
Results from the communications & marketing Race:
Total valid votes: 3,640
Emmet Broaders: 1,502 (41.3%)
Glen Byrne: 1,974 (54.2%)
RON: 164 (4.5%)
Byrne has been elected on the first count.
Counting of votes in the communications & marketing race:
There is always a high number of “don’t know/undecided” people in our polls, but our prediction model takes that into account. Most of the undecided people don’t actually end up voting, and those who do end up splitting marginally in favour of the lead candidate. So our results excluded undecideds and predicted the actual results we expect tonight. But again, we’ll see.
But just because we’ve been bang on with our polls over the past two years doesn’t mean that we’ll get it right this time. We polled people on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the first week of elections as normal, and normally people have made up their minds at that point (which surprises a lot of people), but things can change.
In the communications & marketing race, the poll predicts Glen Byrne to win with 56.7 per cent of first-preference votes over his opponent, Emmet Broaders, who is predicted to receive 39.6 per cent of votes.
I got about 12 per cent RONs – but our poll predicted me to get around the same as Baker, so maybe our poll underestimates the number of RONs in an uncontested race.
Data analysis conducted by Conor Parle suggests that Baker will take 91.2 per cent of the vote. Re-open nominations (RONs) will take around 8.8 per cent. If this pans out, Baker will end up getting a lower number of RONs than I did, which would be a bit upsetting.
I suppose now is a good time to remind everyone of our polling results for these races. Last week, we polled 1,007 people – and for the past two years, we’ve managed, somehow, to predict the results of every race within a three per cent margin.
Counting has just begun for Editor of The University Times race and communications & marketing race.
The Electoral Commission have just finished stamping some ballots that were not stamped at the St James’s Hospital polling station on Monday, because the stamp was broken. Stamps are used by the Electoral Commission to authenticate ballots. Some of these ballots from St James’s Hospital were marked with a pen by the polling officials, but some were blank polling sheets, according to Molly Kenny, Secretary of the Electoral Commission, and Colm O’Halloran, Chair of the Electoral Commission. There were approximately 60 votes cast at St James’s, Kenny said.
Finally, the presidential race will be counted.
The ents race will be followed by the welfare and education race. These will be counted at the same time.
The ents race will be counted on its own after that – one that is set to be close and contentious, and will likely go to a third count.
The Electoral Commission have decided to count both the Editor of The University Times race and the communications & marketing race at the same time. They will be done first, after they finish sorting ballots.
There was definitely less of a build-up. Stephen Carty commented earlier on in the race that they “crept up on us”.
Yeah. Plus, this year’s elections have definitely had less hype surrounding them. The promotion of the elections wasn’t very strong, and the earlier nomination deadline definitely meant there was less of a build up.
Me neither. Last year’s race saw the rise of Lynn Ruane, current President of TCDSU, which would have dramatically increased voter turnout.
I’m not surprised that the turnout this year is low. As far as I know, this is probably one of the lower figures in the past few years.
The total tally of voters in this year’s TCDSU elections was 3,894. This is considerably lower than last year’s turnout, when 4,765 voted.
The Electoral Commission have just begun to sort ballots.
