The electoral hangover of the european elections can still be felt in the air, since only a few countries have already published their definitive results (France, Germany andPoland, among others). Spain is not among them, although the provisional by towns. Ireland also does not have definitive figures. It doesn’t even have provisional ballots, a fact that is very common given that this country always takes much longer than the rest to count its ballots. The reason is the voting system that they use there, which has nothing to do with that of closed lists which is used in Spain. In Ireland they vote following a proportional representation system with vote transfer among the candidates.

In other words: voters rank candidates for elections by order of preference on ballots in which the candidates appear alphabetically, along with their photograph, political affiliation and their logo. In this way, they place a number 1 in front of their first choice, a 2 in front of their second, and so on. Next, they fold the ballot and place it in the ballot boxes. This is the process carried out by citizens who wanted to vote in Ireland on Friday, June 7 (since there is not a single day for the Europeansbut they extend for four days). During this day, its neighbors not only faced the European elections but also local elections.

The provisional results of the local elections have already been published. He Fine Gael and the Fianna Fáil They have tied again with 16% of first preference votes and surpassed Sinn Féin, which did not exceed 12%. Thus, of the 949 seats that make up the 31 municipal councils of this country, Fine Gael has 215 representatives, Fianna Fáil 205, Sinn Féin 91 and independents 200. This is a result similar to the composition of the last European Parliament:

  • Fine Gael: 5 seats
  • Fianna Fáil: 2 seats
  • Green: 2 seats
  • Sinn Féin: 1 seat
  • Independent: 3 seats

What is vote counting like in Ireland?

And the next five years? The truth is that the counting of ballots in Ireland could take time a few more days given its voting system, reports Efe. The 14 seats that belong to Ireland in the European Parliament are distributed in relation to a share, which is the minimum number of votes a candidate needs to enter the chamber. This figure is determined by dividing the total number of valid ballots by one more than the number of seats to be filled (that is, 15) and adding one to the result.

“If the votes obtained by a candidate exceed the quota, he or she is immediately elected,” states the European Parliament website. Immediately afterwards, the surplus votes of the candidate chosen among the expressed preferences by the voters. That is, all the votes are counted again (without taking into account the candidate already chosen so that the ballots with the number 1 in this name go on to vote for the second option) and the representatives who exceed the quota are also chosen.

In this process, the candidates with the fewest votes are eliminated and their votes go to the second most voted preference among voters. This process, which is still in progress, is repeated until the 14 seats. For the moment, the latest figures published by the EP at 9:38 am still no data from Ireland. This advance speaks of a victory for the European People’s Party (EPP) with 184 seats.

The Alliance of European Socialists and Democrats (S&D) would be the second group with 139 seats. The liberals, meanwhile, would achieve 79 representatives in the European Parliament. Compared to the situation in the European Parliament before the elections, the EPP wins eight more seats, while the Social Democrats maintain the same number of representatives. The Liberals, for their part, lose 23 deputies.