It is important to note that how you fill in your preferences can also be used to send a message to the parties and candidates. If you want to ensure a candidate cannot possibly benefit from your vote, do not give them any preference.
Dr Jane Suiter told TheJournal.ie that if a voter wants to vote against somebody and indicate their dissatisfaction, they should put that candidate last.
“You’re sending a clearer message than by not giving them a vote at all,” she said, because tallymen will take note of how preferences have been distributed. ”The tallymen notice what direction preferences are going in, even if that vote doesn’t transfer.”

If you say so, Dr.
I’m not even risking a 9th preference on Cyprian Brady.

The whole point in the PR system is to vote the whole way down the sheet. It is a waste of your vote to do otherwise,
if your accept that SOMEONE on the sheet has to get in.
For example, if there are 10 candidates and you only vote for the first 4, then you are saying that you dont care who gets elected if your 4 don’t get in. And it is likely that you would have a preference across the others too.
So use your vote correctly and fill in the full sheet

Slightly OT, but did you know that if you accidentally spoil your ballot paper, e.g., put two number 1s, or even place a number for the wrong candidate, you can have your ballot replaced, as long as you haven’t actually put it in the ballot box. Just tell the Presiding Officer that you’ve accidentally spoiled your vote, they’ll take your incorrect ballot and give you a new one. Not a lot of people know that!

Thank you for this timely, informative item. This is probably the most important election in decades as we fight for the future of Ireland and the our children. I think the future for our generation is pretty much black.

I’m sorry. This stuff about a travelling vote is a theory I’ve always thought badly flawed.

You should vote for whomever you want to get elected.

This notion of a vote down the sheet to last is reliant on your being able to tell whether or not someone will be able to tell who’ll be elected or eliminated from the fourth count on, and I think this is a complete lottery. A transfer to a candidate who’s already gone ends the vote, and the person whom you wanted elected most ends up not getting elected at all. Where’s the good in that?

I discussed this with a few friends on Facebook. The best explanation we came up with for for using your full set of preferences down to the last candidate is as follows:

Suppose you have four seats, three have been filled (by candidates Anne, Barry, and Colm) and there are three candidates left (Dick, Enda, Fiona). Conventional wisdom says that given you’re “up for” only one party or ideology, you only give preferences to Anne and Barry who are in that party.

Now, suppose Anne got your 1, Barry got your 2, but given that they are both elected, it’s now down to who gets your number three. If you don’t transfer to any of the other candidates at all, you are leaving it up to other people to decide between them. The worry that you are “helping people you don’t like over the line” if you list your preferences fully doesn’t hold because if no-one gives them any transfers, they’ll get elected without a quota anyway.

So suppose Dick is corrupt, Enda a dreamy lefty who’d ruin the country by chasing away business and Fiona a former terrorist. Are you really indifferent between these three? Only in the incredibly unlikely scenario that you are actually completely indifferent on every last aspect of policy, party and personality between more than one candidate, and even then that this bunch of candidates are ranked below all others, should you consider stopping your preferences before the last one.

@ Spailpin Fanach

Your vote does NOT die if your 4th (or any other) choice is eliminated, thats the whole point. It simply moves to your next choice. The only way your vote ‘dies’ is when you stop filling in your preferences.

Perhaps a better way to approach this is to start with your LEAST favoured candidate giving them the lowest number, and working up the ballot sheet until you reach number 1 for your 1st preference candidate

http://election2011.ie/?p=1143 explains it very well

If you are voting along party lines, a simple strategy is to give who you think is the weakest candidate of that party your number 1, then the next weakest your number 2 etc .
Here is a guide that may be helpful
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government_in_ireland/elections_and_referenda/voting/proportional_representation.html

Friends, let me come out with my hands up. I have a personal beef.

I ran in a Students Union election once, many moons ago. One position, three candidates, ballot by STV.

I had enough second preferences to see me comfortably sweep past either of the other two. But where Aughrim was lost is that I didn’t have the first preferences to last to the second count. I got the bullet from lack of those first preferences, was eliminated on the first count. Deireadh leis an Spailpín Fánach, as one of my favourite choons goes.

And that’s what makes me concerned about Dr Suiter’s “sending a message” remarks, rather than voting for whom you want to win. As far as I personally am concerned, and I’m prepared to go on the record on the issue, STV can go and flip off to flip, because it’s flipping nothing but a flipping waste of time and effort. Mo mhallacht air go deo!

Flip that for a start!

eh everybody seems to be missing the question of which first preference votes go to make up the quota, and which ones go to the surplus – surely that decision is more significant than the nuances of one person using every single last possible preference?

@Patrick
Surplus votes

“If a candidate receives more than the quota on any count, the surplus votes are transferred to the remaining candidates in proportion to the next available preferences indicated by voters (i.e., the next preference on each vote for a candidate who has not been elected or eliminated). For example, if candidate A receives 900 votes more than the quota on the first count and on examining all of his or her votes, it is found that 30% of these have next available preferences for candidate B, then candidate B does not get 30% of all candidate A’s votes, candidate B gets 30% of his/her surplus, i.e., 270 votes (30% of 900).

Where a candidate is elected at the second or at later count, only the votes that brought him/her over the quota are examined in the surplus distribution, i.e., the parcel of votes last transferred to the elected candidate.”

With 25% of the population too young to vote, and over 12% of the population over 65, only 63% of the population is going to have a chance of understanding this complicated system. Who is taking care of explaining this complicated procedure to the elderly in Ireland, many of whom are not noticably tweeting???!