The Conservatives have almost 131,000 fans, Labour have just over 93,000 and the Lib Dems have about 500 more fans – about 93,600. So based on a population of 61 million, that’s about 0.002% of the population for the Conservatives and about 0.0015% for both Labour and the Lib Dems.

I think people don’t wear their politics on their sleeves any more. I certainly don’t know what way many of my friends vote (though I have my suspicions about some). Also, I think a lot more people are floating voters. I remember when I was younger people used to be FF or FG voters – regardless of the candidate standing or the policies advocated by the party. That’s definitely not as prevalent now. I think people are far more likely to be a fan of a particular politician than be a fan of an overall party.

That being said, I don’t see that figures for likes/friends on FB as a valid metric by which to measure how internet based an election could be here for the simple reason that the voters who matter – those changing from last time out – are almost certain not to declare any allegiance on FB or anywhere else. As a set of stats, it’s very self selecting and probably not representative of the population of Ireland on FB as a whole never mind the population of Ireland, both on and not on FB.

Does it matter? Probably not all that much to be honest. A lot depends on the level of political interaction online and if you take – for example – politics.ie or the politics forum on boards.ie, a key feature of discourse in Ireland is that it consists of a lot of yelling and not much actual discussion.

When you can get the level of interaction changed, more livechats allowing greater access to senior politicals, then maybe. Get them on IrishDebate.com possibly as well as interacting more effectively on twitter (let’s face it Dan Boyle and Paul Gogarty were entertaining rather than actually interacting on twitter) then maybe you can see the election moving away from the normal hustings and canvassing here.

Absolutely true. Not very many politicians out there to be proud of Damo…

Those numbers spoke for themselves.

This isn’t a case of people being apathetic, or not wanting their ‘friends’ to know what way they are voting. Granted, budgets aren’t close between the two, but smells of poor implementation, and lack of understanding of the platform to me.

Sad as it sounds, frequently a person is elected due to being liked (as opposed to ‘liked’) by their local electorate. Even with a strong party pull, the most liked candidate for that party would get through. (Hence the importance to attend the right weddings and funerals and attending to certain potholes and a**holes).

This could mean that if all the candidates in an area have a profile, the one with the most ‘friends’ might get the most votes.

Is it possible to get those statistics, either for a single constituency or for the nation?

Its like the saying about politics and religion.. no one wants to say something that will offend half of the audience.

Those trying to make a statement will but most people don’t want to do that.

Its like the saying about politics and religion.. no one wants to say something that will offend half of the audience.

Those trying to make a statement will but most people don’t want to do that.