Midlands-North-West end game uncertainty continues

The distrubtion of preferences continued today in the ballot for Midlands-North-West. One of the sitting MEPs, Chris MacManus of Sinn Fein, has been eliminated. He is pictured watching as his 33,000 votes are divided up and transferred to the remaining candidates.

The Sinn Fein voters appear to be very loyal and just under two thirds of people who gave a 1 to Chris MacManus have given a 2 to his Sinn Fein colleague Michelle Gildernew. The staff are sitting beside a pile of just over 20,000 votes that transfer from MacManus to Gildernew.

Approximately 4,000 votes are in a pile for the sitting independent Luke "Ming" Flanagan. The fact that an independent can seize so many preference votes that would normally pass between the two Sinn Fein candidates demonstrates the strong local support for Flanagan.

This diversion of 4,000 votes to Flanagan means that Gildernew will be neck-and-neck with rival Ciaran Mullooly as the final preferences are distributed from other candidates.

The contest between Gildernew and Mullooly remains wide open.

 

Chris MacManus watches to see how many of his votes transfer to his colleague Michelle Gildernew.

 

The 20,000 preference votes that transferred from Chris MacManus to Michelle Gildernew. She would have needed at least 25,000 to give hear a comfortable lead over rivals.

 

The 4,000 preference votes that didn't go to Gildernew, they went to Flanagan instead: