Me Blog!

I missed out on getting the 9th seat on Youghal Town Council at the final count by 93 votes after the final count. But I’m not half as disappointed as you might think I should be!

Given that I was only selected as a candidate just 5 weeks before the election meant that I would have an awful lot of work and canvassing to do. My exams didn’t finish until the 7th of May which left me with just under four weeks to get out and about so the odds were against me from the start.

My realistic target was the ninth seat and from the start I knew my main opposition would be one of the sitting Sinn Fein councillors. Once the first count was over and the dust settled I was very very close. She had 168 first preference votes and I had 154. Her running mate topped the poll with 524 first preferences and that was a clear indicator for me that I was going to be out of luck. Sinn Fein have a very well oiled political machine and core group of tactical voters. With a quota of 342 they were going to have a huge surplus from their poll topper.

Sure enough this proved to be the case as the second Sinn Fein candidate pulled in a whopping 112 transfer votes to give her a lead of just over 100 votes on me.

One of my running mates had a first count of 508 first preferences and a surplus of 166 votes however as there were three of us Fine Gael candidates, the transfers were going to be split between us. This proved to be the case and from each count on I was trailing the Sinn Fein candidate by in and around 100 votes after each count.

So the end result is that I missed out by 93 votes but I’m not too disappointed! 154 first preference votes and by the end of counting I had a total of 246 which,  from my relatively short campaign is quite an achievment and I’m pretty pleased over all.

On the upside got my exam results on Wednesday and I passed!

So I can finally start enjoying my summer holidays!

All that remains is to congratulate the candidates that were elected and thank you to those of you who gave me your first preference. There is always next time.