Now that every Irish person is to be allowed to vote for the future President of Ireland, already Tom Elliot the Ulster Unionist MP wants to make it difficult for them , even though he too has every right to vote.It is hardly credible.The anamoly has always been that any Irish person could stand and actually be the President, but until now anyone living in Northern Ireland or futher afield could not vote. That’s about to change ,but Mr Elliot doesn’t want any polling stations to be set up for people to vote in within Northern Ireland.
This is typical Norneverland lunatic thinking, of course and it is only to be expected from a person or persons who want to cut off his nose to spite his face. It is not that Mr Elliot is being denied anything or is having anything taken away; indeed he is being offered something extra but he wants to deny others and also make it as hard as is possible for everyone else to vote to accept the right and the gift.He says that “it would be imposing on the people of Northern Ireland”, but how can that possibly be the case when he can as easily abstain or vote? It would be his choice entirely whether or not he got involved .In elections at the moment there is no law in place which makes it compulsory to vote for anyone, but if we all have the right to vote and some might want to use that vote , what exactly is the man’s problem?
We should call for the removal of the proxy or postal vote. It is open to abuse by the political parties here. The way politicans are allowed into old people’s homes to target the vulnerable in our society is shocking.
have you not to hold an irish passport to vote.maybe tom hasnt got one.
By the time they get round to it everybody will be voting on the internet.
I am not convinced this cannot be organised in time for our next election to the position of Uachtarán na hÉireann.
Upon election in Feb. 2011, and with the support of the main party of opposition, the blueshirts proposed, and quickly put it to electors, that we move from bicameralism to unicameral legislature, rejected by the electorate in a 2011 referendum, there were two on that day.
In light of this fact, and a subsequent referendum in 2012 on the fiscal compact, should the two ‘Republican Parties’ of opposition not be pushing the issue be expedited in the interests of the Republic?
On that point, as I mentioned previously, the Free-Stater’s are scared to death of upsetting the settlers in Ulster, Tom is likely to be able to delay ’til he’s no longer in post.
Explain this. “It would be imposing on the people of Northern Ireland ….. On the greater people of Northern Ireland ” and he stamps his size 15 feet à la Arlene ” I don’t want polling stations in Northern Ireland ” Wouldn’t all the newly refurbished Orange halls and super heated empty sheds serve the purpose? I bet if a fee could be arranged all would be well.
Well that exactly the point ,fiosrach. I don’t see a logistic problem with any of it ,really.Here we are possibly about to have yet another election a la Mr Brokenshire and all the usual schools and so forth will probably be utilised.Personally ,I have to go the the other side of town every time I vote and plunk my vote in a state school that serves my ward…for whatever reason .It doesn’t actually hurt one little bit and as we all know there are plenty who never bother to leave their homes to vote at all.What is the man’s problem?
Aye, but what does …….. The greater people of Northern Ireland ….. mean? I sympathise with you having to endure the atmosphere of the Armstrong on polling days but you chose to Iive on the wrong side of the tracks. Hah!
There’s a track? We lost the railway a couple of years after i was born.I blame that bugger Beeching…no foresight at all ….
Every couple of years the Gazette raises the hare to reopen the line. The absence of an M1 to Ard Mhacha was the reason that Craigavon hospital was not built at St Lukes. Just imagine you could have been the head porter. But I digress. Could we not postal vote relatively easily?
Head porter , eh fiosrach? One of the few jobs I haven’t done in my long life….carrying massahs cases and that….
Very pertinent question Harry.
That’s where an ould mate of yours ended up and you can be sure he didn’t carry too many cases.
I’m trying to think who that might be…”ould mate”? mmm…I wonder just how “matey” this ould mate was ….
A Hardy look alike
If it’s the man I’m thinking of , that would be stretching the meaning of the word “friend” just a hair !
both left wing. both overweight. both republican. I jest
You’re Labour-ing the point there, fio. BTW, it’s often put forward as an excuse for a rail link that armagh is the only city without one. It hasn’t a bowling green which is a bigger miss!
Bowling greens are for the dead and the dying. Get an allotment!
Wouldn’t it be terrific if the Unionists refused.
And then the Dublin Government opened up permanent consulates in several places in the North…anyway.
So, the act of saying no to temporary polling booths would result in permanent Irish structures. Classic.
BTW, how do the French in London vote in French elections??
do, they go to the French Embassy?
Also, isn’t Westminster in charge of Foreign affair and Defence for the provence?
Ergo, it’s a matter between Dublin and Whitehall.
unionists will have to do what they’re told.
AFAIK
Yes, Oz ,there are endless possibilities in this new scenario.What if unionism got into the spirit of things and actually voted to influence the outcome …or better still , present their own candidate.?Wouldn’t that be an interesting notion too.They have every right to field a candidate ,after all.
Tom doesn’t want them. End of story.
Back to basics after the flights of fancy..There should be little problem voting for anything or anyone throught he internet anyway…as long as it doesn’t crash , of course! Surely polling stations are really an anachronism where many work from home , have their groceries dekivered via the internet, shop for many things via the internet , even get their meals and booze delivered to the door by taxi or van. High Street shopping is already on the drift , having been thrashed by Amazon, so what chances have polling booths got in this brave new world anyway? The only way to get this coming generation to vote ata all might be electronically, eh?
PK
Voting for the Irish President aside, I’m not convinced by the idea of electronic voting as an option.
While it might be convenient I think we run the risk of making the act of voting too casual and thoughtless – like ‘liking’ a Facebook comment.
Polling Stations require people to do something other than tap a button; they require people to take government and democracy seriously, and that, I think, in a throwaway, casual and unthinking world is important.
The big things in life, like moral decisions, like government, like nationality should be seen to be important, and one way to ensure that is to require people to do something which is less convenient than ordering pizza.
Well it is worth pointing out how the world and people are heading at the moment.There’s no doubt that there is less and less personal interaction on every level.I ‘ve touched on this before ,but with Artificial intelligence on the rise and more and more being done without even talking to a living human being, that is the direction we are going. We bank online too without even handling hard cash.In fact I rarely use cash at at all. It’s all plastic cards now and now there is only the matter of a simple swipe through a checkout, without even a code number.At supermarket checkouts we scan our own goods through the checkout without human assistance.In fact even should i actually go into the bank thse days I do everything i need to do through an ATM machine in the foyer ….putting cash into the macjhine and switching it from one account to another, so voting is bound to go the same electronic way and realistically why should it not?.
PK
“Well it is worth pointing out how the world and people are heading at the moment…”
I know! It hardly needs pointed out given that we are using the very medium to communicate; hence my comments about big decisions requiring big responsibility.
” so voting is bound to go the same electronic way and realistically why should it not?.”
It may well be, but that was not my point. The point was that treating government in the same way as we treat a supermarket transaction is to demean government.
I doubt too that AI could ever do as much as a human. Have a wee look at the difference between current ideas of human consciousness and mere computation. If you google something like Penrose, AI, and consciousness, it’ll take you there.
Well I am well up on AI.I try to keep up PF and regularly read New Scientist, so I do try to keep abreast even in my dotage…and I can understand we’re already into computation that can better the best chess -players on earth , that has thrashed the best GO players of the east , that can now self-drive cars and probably , transport vehicle too and can to all imtents Artificial ntelligence already I runs the internet and makes personal buying choices and so on for us already and e-mais l them to us daily to our inboxes.
When you look back at the achievements of only this past fifty years, who knows what the next ten or twenty will bring. It’s not so long since we bought our first personal phone and now we’re are video-linking to our friends and children across the world with them. As for “demeaning” government…you andI know that government can do that very nicely all by itself. Computers and smart phones are only the tools we rely on more and more to do all these little peripheral tasks.It’s only when they all break down that we’ll actually have to get up off our collective arses and walk or drive to the banks, shops or the polling booths.I can still remember a time when there was no telephone in the home of any description , certainly no internet or personal computers and personal phones, so for someone of more recent vintage , for example , the very idea of waiting two or three weeks for a reply to a hand-written letter might seem a very long wait, but it was quite normal a few short years ago for me . That is not what people really want or expectanymore, I think.
PK
Just google: Roger Penrose, chess, quantum.
Or what I suggested above.
PF .Yes ,I’ve read the Penrose /quantum physics thing .I agree with you that AI Artificial Intelligence and human intelligence are two different things and might never develop into the exact same thing.We created AI but it might never be the same kind of consciousness as most of us humans experience.I stress “most” , because many do not experience the world in the same way at all. They’ll always be differences. That’s not what I mean.AI will continue to be developed and we will continue to use it. Its sense of “consciousness” or awareness of “self” might never develop or be be the same as a human or even a dolphin or a dog.Who knows whether or not AI will develop any form of proper self-awareness or creativity at all ? We don’t know any of these things yet but what we do know is that these systems can do so much for us and are currently doing it and developing other freedoms for us .There’ll probably never be an end to human inquisitiveness or inventiveness so let’s wait and see what else we come up with .I always simply remember that my father was born only sixteen years after the Wright Brothers put a plane in the air for the first time…before mankind had ever taken to the skies in proper flight and that we live in a world now that was the science fiction of my own childhood. Who knows what our children and grandchildren might experience and know?.
PK
A couple of things following from what you have said:
(1) Human consciousness seems to require something beyond mere computation, however powerful – this is why we are using the word ‘consciousness’. We are subject to/or express our humanity in a number of ways such as moral judgements, experience, trust, doubt, opinion, beauty, creativity, self expression, self understanding, self awareness, and not only is it difficult to see how we might use these concepts in any meaningful way to describe a computing machine, but the recently published work actually suggests that the human brain works *differently* to mere computation.
(2) Apart from that, what you have said doesn’t address the concerns I raised about casual voting.
Governments may demean themselves, but that doesn’t excuse a voting system which risks encouraging a casual attitude.
Technology may well be advancing but that doesn’t justify always adopting an attitude of convenience.
If voting is important, if government is important, if democracy is important, then we ought to be doing something to raise the level of debate, improve our capacity to think and increase engagement in the democratic process. And my contention is that voting by app or by tap fails in this regard. We might even make the case that AI, in that sense makes us *less* conscious.
Increasing the proportion of the population who vote may be a worthy enough goal, but increasing awareness, thought and responsibility is more so.
Well I wasn’t necessarily thinking along those lines at all PF.When I talk of convenience I’m talking about the greater ease of actually voting …in the same sense as I ‘d talk about the ease of ordering a book from Amazon . That doesn’t demean the process of the act.It makes it easier only when the choice of candidate or the required book you are about to buy has been made already. I mean that when i’ve made my own decision it is not so important how that is actually realised.I’d imagine that the internal debate would have taken place already before that vote was cast or that credit card plunked down to buy that specific book.I can’t see how the actual method of getting your vote from A to B or how you actually have that book finally ordered or delivered would make much difference to the result you might want.
On the other point, and for what it’s worth (which may not be much), I’m not particularly interested in voting for an Irish President in the context of ‘partition’.
make more sense if they were voting to abolish the position.
If we follow Tom’s ‘logic’ then the fact that nationalism now has equal prominence with unionism, we could counter his proposal with one which would prevent the holding of elections in N Ireland to the foreign Westminster parliament!
Whataboutery, how are ye!
I think the proposed extension of voting rights in presidential elections to northern citizens is a positive step towards subverting partition and hopefully undoing the sense of abandonment felt by many northerners as a result of that partition and the approach of the southern establishment to their northern compatriots ever since. Extending the vote to all citizens, be they from the north or south of Ireland (or abroad), has great symbolic significance. It emphasises the fact that we’re all one.
The president is also the Irish nation’s global representative. It is only fitting that all Irish nationals have a say in his or her appointment.
As for Elliott’s stock-unionist response, it was as depressingly uptight, defensive, resistive and disingenuous as one would expect.
First of all, nothing is to be imposed. It would simply be the extension of a choice for those who wish to voluntarily participate. If Elliott and other unionists, or anyone else in the north for that matter, wish to opt out, boycott or ignore the whole thing, they’ll be fully free to do so and they can continue with living their lives unaffected and as normal.
Secondly, can unionists veto the setting up of polling stations north of the border? The southern government could surely rent out private spaces in which to set up polling stations rather than having to rely on the provision of public spaces by the northern government, no? I understand that the southern government has office-space and a residence (for its British-Irish Council staff) in Stranmillis besides, which, you’d imagine, could potentially be converted into a polling station if needs be and I don’t see why the permission of unionists would be required. If that wasn’t viable, I guess postal votes are an alternative.
Thirdly, who on earth does Tom Elliott think he is? Just because he doesn’t want something, doesn’t mean other people must also be deprived of it. How utterly imperious and narcissistic.
Did Tom object as loudly when Poland set up polling stations for Polish citizens living in the north in 2010, or in 2009 for the European elections in 2009, or for their parliamentary elections in 2006? It’s almost as if there was some sectarian intent behind Tom’s objection to the extension of voting rights to northern-based Irish citizens…
For Tom, it seems that nationalists can have their rights, but just so long as those rights don’t offend his unionist sensibilities.
Those are my thoughts too, Daniel.There are also plenty of unused “shops” in towns across the land with fake fronts that could be utilised, come to think of it.