Sir, – The local and European elections are now just a fortnight away and there will be wall-to-wall coverage of the candidates and likely winners and losers. What won’t be covered is the electoral system itself, because apparently the body politic assumes that voters know how to vote despite nobody telling them. Ireland is almost unique in having the single transferable vote system of proportional representation, but when was the last time you saw an information advert or received a booklet in the letterbox explaining it? We have public relations campaigns on road safety, smoking, mental health, and so on, but no PR about PR (excuse the pun).
How many readers know how to calculate the quota, or for that matter what is a quota? Why are there multiple counts? Are transfers important, and are transfers from eliminated candidates better than those from elected candidates? Why are some candidates elected without exceeding the quota?
Since we don’t have an electoral commission to educate the public, perhaps the media could explain how our voting system works. – Yours, etc,
JASON FITZHARRIS,
Rivervalley,
Swords, Co Dublin.