It was great to see Dr. Garrett Fitzgerald and others teaching Frank Luntz about the Irish electoral system. As you’ll know I was not a fan of the American ‘guru’ and his take on Irish politics, never mind the way in which he tried to put words into the mouths of those participating in the focus groups. It’s a pity he did not do this type of research before he did the focus group programmes. Even over the weekend on radio after being at the counts he came across as particularly pompous and naive.

There is something very beautiful about the Irish electoral system – very painful for many I know, but democratic to the heart. As Dr. Fitzgerald told Frank about the good thing that is non electronic voting I cheered. I spent all day Friday blogging the count and enjoying the fruits of the tallypersons labours but in previous elections I have been at counts with my clipboard sniffing those ballot papers and enjoying the analysis of the previous weeks and years work of the candidate and his team.

In this case I too am a luddite, let’s keep the pencil and paper, the laptops at the back of the room are fine – particularly when wired up and emailing me with the tallies as they progress!. But the leaning over the barriers with the sticker on your back to denote your side observing the democratic process has to remain or we’ll never really understand why someone voted the way they did or where the vote was etc. and we may never truely trust it if we cannot see it, feel it and smell it.