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RENUA’S DIRECTOR OF communications and political strategy John Drennan has quit the party in the wake of its disastrous general election result where it failed to win any seats.
The former Sunday Independent political editor joined Renua in May of last year, saying the new political party had “the potential to bring real change to Irish politics”.
Drennan worked closely with party leader Lucinda Creighton throughout his time with the party, but it failed to capture the support of the public it had hoped for.
Renua lost all three of its TDs in the general election with Creighton the most high-profile casualty in Dublin Bay South.
It failed to win Dáil seats anywhere else despite fielding 26 candidates. It’s understood that Drennan handed in his notice on election day.
In a brief statement to TheJournal.ie, Drennan said that he wished Renua all the best in the future, adding: “The party does have a future, but it may have to redefine itself.”
Drennan is the author of a number of books, including The Great Betrayal: How the Government with the Largest Majority in the History of the Irish State Lost Its People, which was published while he was working for the party last year.
Despite not winning any seats, Renua did secure over 2% of support nationally in the election which means it qualifies for state funding of around €250,000 annually.
Creighton has said the party will continue despite not winning any Dáil seats.
Under the party’s constitution she will have to resign as leader as she is no longer an elected politician. One of the party’s five sitting councillors is likely to take up the role.
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She should also ask for a recount of the DNC presidential primaries vote.
@The_Techno_Mage: Wasn’t even close… You know Clinton won that by Millions…
Actually she looks like she won the popular vote by millions as well…
Before the main election, each party has their “primaries” to decide which politician will be party’s candidate.
It was exposed by wikileaks that the DNC favoured Hillary over Bernie Sanders and rigged things in her favor.
http://observer.com/2016/07/wikileaks-proves-primary-was-rigged-dnc-undermined-democracy/
Trump on the other won the Republican primaries fairly.
Although Trump may not have won the popular vote, the electoral college has always been part of the American system and designed by the Founding Fathers as a way to protect minority voters.
For example, they acknowledged that while most lived in cities, people in rural and more remote areas would be effected significantly differently from each election. So do give these a fair voice the electoral college was developed.
Imagine if all of Europe was unified as one single nation, where each current country was a state (The United States of Europe if you will). Each state would have every different populations, cultures and economies. So elections in this USE nation would effect each state very differently.
Ireland in this USE would have a population of 4.5 million. while Britain would have a population of 64 million.
Now imagine if there was an election in this United States of Europe and everyone in Britain decided to vote one way, while everyone in Ireland voted the other way, because as a smaller state with a different economy and culture, the election would effect Ireland significantly differently.
If we went by the popular vote, then Ireland would always be out-voted by Britain, because Britain has more people and has therefore more voters. So no matter what, Ireland would never have a say in the matter of this United States of Europe.
It’s the same with the U.S.A, states like New York and California would have a much higher population and much different culture and economy than Alabama or Kansas. Thus these states would be effected much more differently and more people in these states would vote differently.
So that’s why we have the electoral college to give everyone a fair voice.
@The_Techno_Mage: @LITTLEONE:
No, I am saying all voting irregularities or fraud should be investigated…
Have you an issue with people coming forward with evidence of a possible crime and the authorities investigating it?
First, please read your article… It is a standard right wing hit piece which is very short on facts but give loads of commentary…
Second, thanks for the information on the EC, that is not what was disputed about…
She conceded, he won. Move on
@Conor church:
She can concede all you like but this is about the accuracy of the vote…
If there is evidence, then it should be investigated by the FBI…
Yea, the result should stand as is, it would cause war to exchange one idiot for another this way. Not being very ‘puter literate … Is the voting not in an enclosed system? They hardly ran it through a Google or Microsoft account.? How can it be hacked from overseas, that would have to be an internal breach?
If Trump had won popular vote and lost the E College by 100k votes, I think he would challenge it too …. After all he did claim that the election result would be ” rigged against him” .
@Greg Blake: Yes, the vulnerability with the Sequoia voting machines is well known. They can’t be hacked remotely but the firmware can be reflashed with physical access to the machine to alter behaviour and vote handling.
But this is the land where any wrongdoing must be blamed on those evil foreign Russians/Chinese/North Koreans. I’d say they know that but consider it more palatable and likely to cause an investigation than to be accused of being anti-democratic or anti-american for blaming republicans.
@Greg Blake: While I’m inclined to say that the current result should stand, let me shine some light on the “enclosed system” for voting that you’re pondering.
Any device on a network can theoretically be hacked. It’s just a question of how hard it is to do it. As the whole purpose of electronic voting is to make things go more quickly, it is undoubtedly on some kind of network and so could be hacked (in theory).
While this article doesn’t go into how secure America’s e-voting system is or how easy/hard it’d be to hack (other than mention that changing the tallies would be difficult), their argument is that where it was used, the results were much more in favour of Trump than where paper voting was used.
This implies that “something” was wrong with the electronic voting and thus a recount is required to confirm the result.
If they really wanted to, they could side-step the hacking allegation and just argue on that point alone. But it’s always more juicy and attention grabbing if you can blame someone else for a problem :) .
@Cowboy Paddy: like the way she stole the dem nod from Sanders?
I can’t see anything coming from this, not least because there will be calls of her doing the same thing to Bernie Sanders, but it will allow her to save some face. There will be a nod and a wink among her supporters and for decades rumours will circulate that Clinton actually won this election but was cheated. It’s unlikely Trump will become a good or even outstanding president, at least not for reasons you’d be proud of, but this will allow her to hold her head up for a long time and will keep conspiracy theorists going for the next 50 years or so.
@William Kavanagh:
Really, she won by more than 3.7million votes or 12%… How is that stole…
I am starting to feel guilty now. It’s like the US has been involved in an horrific car crash and because I have been stuck in election traffic for so long I feel entitled to have a good old gawp at the accident. The election is over but I am still glued to the carnage through my rearview mirror. Must …..stop…….rubbernecking….
At this point can they just get rid of trump and Clinton and start again. They have until end of January before the new person takes over. Trump would even welcome it if he’s smart enough to realise what will happen when he can’t come through with his crazy promises.
@Peter King: President elect Mr. Trump is playing the left like a well worn violin, he has them dancing like whirling dervishes
Have they considered that maybe the paper ballots could be the problem. Ballot box stuffing . Now that would be hilarious if it backfired.
Hillary Clinton is being urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in three swing states won by Donald Trump, New York has learned. The group, which includes voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, believes they’ve found persuasive evidence that results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania may have been manipulated or hacked. The group is so far not speaking on the record about their findings and is focused on lobbying the Clinton team in private.”
What has been pointed out so far is a statistical difference between the digital machine vote and the paper vote,
The academics who noted the statistical difference assume this difference means hacking of the machines but it could in fact mean the opposite and the problem is the paper ballots. Ballot box stuffing.
@LITTLEONE: Great, then that should be investigated too…
Lets not make it political but about the truth…
: @Cowboy Paddy: basically they are saying in states that Hilary Clinton won that used paper ballots where ballot box stuffing can easily be done after the polls close. Plenty of videos online of this happening during the primaries is not a problem but in states that used voting machines that
would be “extremely difficult” for anyone “to alter actual ballot counts or election results by cyber attack or intrusion”. According to Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security is cause for concern.
Talk about clutching at straws.
@LITTLEONE:
No, I am saying all voting irregularities or fraud should be investigated…
Have you an issue with people coming forward with evidence of a possible crime and the authorities investigating it?
Ironic, there wasn’t this much whinging when George Bush Jr. actually stole his first election.
How is this ironic?
It’s like rain on your wedding day.
@Titus Groan: Just wait, you’ll hear things like “it’s an affront to democracy” etc. America the land of contradiction.
@Les Behan:
I’m pretty sure I remember a serious amount of “whinging” after Bush stole Florida
Imagine what a different world we would have had Al Gore won that election
I’m not sure you know what ironic means.
Misuse of the term irony.
How ironic is that?
Ironic, but more likely stupid.
It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife.
@Les Behan: you don’t know what ironic means, do you?
This the same Clinton that lectured Trump about accepting election result when she won and the same one who conceded graciously in front of all her tireless campaigners
@frash: It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid
@Congress Tart: It’s meeting the man of my dreams and then meeting his beautiful wife
@Neal, not Neil.: The only thing ironic about that f’ing song is that there is no irony in it…vicious ironic circle.
Frash, someone else is asking her to call for a recount, so no, it’s not the same Clinton. It’s not a Clinton of any sort. Plus she had legitimate concerns that Trump would challenge the result had he lost. Or have you selectively forgotten the bit where he said the election would be rigged against him?
@frash: I assume you can’t read, because the article clearly states that “a group of computer scientists and election solicitors” are asking her to do this.
It’s not her idea, you dope.
@frash:
Lets make it clear Clinton is doing nothing here so far, and she shouldn’t have to.
To interfere in an election is a federal crime. If there is evidence of a crime it should be investigated…
Still crying over trump ? Build a wall and get over it
Or a fence if it works out cheaper for you.
To be fair another meaning of wall is “barrier”. So a fence is also a wall.
@Fred Johnson I hope you’re not an architect or builder. I wouldn’t want to hire you to build my house!
I’ll build a wall Alan, but you’re paying for it!
@Markonline:
Or cheaper again, a metaphorical wall.
@Daisy Chainsaw:
Daisy are you one of those foolish people who took Donald Trump literally, rather than seriously?
You have to take someone literally to take them seriously. Not believing what someone says is not taking them seriously
@Fred Johnson: Take a pussy grabbing, bigoted, reality show host seriously? Never… But the alt-wrong neonazis and KKK did.
Daisy – lol, 4-8 years of your pathetic tears. Amazing. Please don’t stop.
@Cen Sored: I give it around 2. Cheeto Jesus is flipflopping harder than a Fianna Failure at the moment. Wouldn’t surprise me if one of his erstwhile KKK and neonazi fans, or one of those second amendment people did something. “Maybe not… I don’t know” to quote the Trumpkin in Chief himself about taking care of threats to right wing nutbags’ guns.
And this is the brand of democracy the US are so keen to push globally? Is it any wonder the likes of Iraq and Afghinastan are up in arms over it. USA, most UNdemocratic country in the world
After Ireland that is, we’ve a pretty good record for voting until the correct result is a achieved.
Rubbish comment.
@Yenreit:
Bad as they are they’re not the most undemocratic country in the world though, are they? Are they even in the top fifty? You’ve just said something inflammatory and zany in the hope that nobody would question your logic.
@dublinlad: It’s doing well in the numbers though!
@Stu Bear: And you’ll back your comment up with…?
Media u lost build a bridge and get over it.
So, maybe Trump was right and the election was a fix after all.
A whole article of hot air with absolutely no substance and at the very end the lovely quote of “The statement did add, however, that it would be “extremely difficult” for anyone “to alter actual ballot counts or election results by cyber attack or intrusion”.” Why didn’t they just say this in the first paragraph, would have made the article much shorter!
Difficult doesn’t mean impossible. Working in IT you would be surprised how often holes in security are found. Still find the occasional y2k bug.
There won’t be a toy left in the pram
go for it
Can sanders get a recount?
Democrats clutching at straws.
PATHETIC!
@Frederick Burden: We face 8 years of them weeping and gnashing their teeth.
Well we did toss out our own electronic voting machines because they couldn’t produce an auditable paper trail for this very reason.
I wouldn’t count your chickens on 8 years just yet. Let’s see how the first 4 go
@MackPilon: 4 then its Kanye. murica f yeah! lol
The media is so rigged and if they keep this up in Europe we’ll see Marine le Pen sworn in next yr too
A bit hypocritical complaining about foreign hacking when Obama personally went on TV and canvassing foreign immigrants to vote for Hillary, weither they were citizens or not.
A bit stupid to even draw parallels between the two and if you aren’t a citizen you can’t vote.
@Shane Kinsella: I do believe that they were entitled to vote as they were citizens of America…
So what is your issue with him doing that ? Cray cray!
Nope, Obama is on video urging non citizens to vote. https://youtu.be/WCLO0WBvhF8
@Shane Kinsella: Oh dear! Here is an excerpt from that interview :
OBAMA: “Not true. And the reason is, first of all, when you vote, you are a citizen yourself. And there is not a situation where the voting rolls somehow are transferred over and people start investigating, et cetera. The sanctity of the vote is strictly confidential in terms of who you voted for. If you have a family member who maybe is undocumented, then you have an even greater reason to vote.”
OBAMA: … “who may not have a voice. Who can’t legally vote. But they’re counting on you to make sure that you have the courage to make your voice heard.”
Hope this clears up your confusion.
Of course it’s over. Talk about clutching at strews. They have produced a scintilla of evidence that anything untoward took place. Unpalatable as it may be the Democrats need to start accepting the result.. Goodness knows they kicked up an almighty fuss when Trump suggested he wouldn’t accept the result if he lost..
In fairness to Hilary Clinton, she hasn’t said anything about not accepting the result.
Duffy> If there was voter fraud it should be looked into regardless of who won. The evidence is basic enough to ask questions and look. Why would Trump get more votes on electronic voting machines in states polls showed him losing? Enough to investigate to make sure there is nothing strange.
@Kal Ipers:
Maybe because the polls got the wrong result? Brexit?
Maybe they didn’t? Brexit polls were really close and within the margin of error. Not sure why so many people consider the polls were so wrong on Brexit.
@Kal Ipers:
The polls in the US were very close too. On Nov 7th some pools were within basis points and some had Trump ahead. It was very close but overall the polls got it wrong.
On one hand you are arguing that because the polls in the US got it wrong the votes should be investigated but when the polls in the UK got it wrong they shouldn’t be investigated. Now for someone working in IT that ain’t demonstrating too much critical thinking
As I say there is no evidence. The Indo goes with the headline that there is “strong” evidence yet when one reads the article they have no evidence and they talk about “they believe there may have been fraud” or they “believe there is evidence”. Either there evidence or there isn’t. In order to undermine the democratic process a clear prima facie case has to be made and they haven’t done that. 7% more votes for trump in areas where e-voting was used is no indication of electronic fraud.. you divide votes into two groups on any basis the percentage for each candidate is unlikely to be the same and a 7% variation should not appear suspect.. but since you believe this is an indication of e-voting fraud in favour of Trump; why isn’t it evidence that Democrats were stuffing Clinton paper ballet papers into ballot boxes..??? No case has been made here…
Nick> To say the polls in Brexit got it wrong is actually incorrect. They predicted it very close and with the margin for error it was not going to predict. Nothing questionable. The US polling was much more granular and Trump won way above a margin of error in some areas. That is critical analysis you just didn’t pay enough attention and looked at the overall poll. I worked for years in market research and know how stats work. Mostly people who don’t understand them believe they are inaccurate and can be fooled by not understanding what they actually say. People lie with them because people don’t understand.
It would be a nice irony if there was a hack that a weakness in IT systems originated from a mail she sent from her server. Could be a win win. Trump would lose because he didn’t get enough votes and Clinton would go to jail. Then Bernie could be the safe president that the US needs
Why would you even think this? Where have you heard anything about mails about how to hack voting machines? If you ever bothered to read up on the mail scandal you would no how ridiculous the whole thing was. The US government use really old tech and if you needed to print documents in an email you had to mail it to yourself. More about bad practice than anything else. Really blown out of proportion and all white house staff were guilty.
@Kal Ipers:
The issue with Clinton using her private email server is not that someone could hack into government systems via it, this is obvious as the mail server was not hosted within the government’s technical infrastructure. This issue is that because it is not protected by government security there are potential vulnerabilities which could result in someone hacking into the server. If this was to occur then the hacker could get access to any sensitive information in the emails. Now what happens if there was sensitive information relating to how the voting machines worked and someone got access to it. As she deleted the emails nobody knows the content.
Why would you think there were mails about voting machine operations. It is a massive leap. Interesting in a novel but not in anyway based in reality and just made up by you. You can of course make up any narrative and then point to deleted emails to say maybe it was in them. Very overblown issue.
Kal Ipers
As per my original post, I said it would be a nice irony. I don’t expect it to happen and nor do I expect that mails Clinton wrote had sensitive information relevant to this. Hence I just said it would be a nice irony. However, just like you don’t know nor do I know, but it is still a possibility.
possibility does not mean anything close to probable. It is a possibility the moon could be knocked out of orbit but you didn’t mention that. Why mention something like your ironic possibility
LIBERAL MELTDOWN part deux.
If it’s as good as the original I’m all for it.
This is another BS non story, the exact same line was touted about Democrats in run up to Nov 8th – specifically allegation that George Soros had links to the company which made the voting machines and there were calls for people to demand paper ballots. Its over, she lost.. I know its tough. Poor Una Mullaly has been sobbing and firing out angry tweets blaming everyone from white men to the Misogynist conspiracy.
If you want to do a real story on voter fraud, dig around and investigate how many illegals or deceased people voted in the election – there’s your story!
In the mean time, your tears are delicious! Mmmmm liberal tears
I know that Una Mulally one needs some serious therapy, seriously lads keep an eye on her the Trump win really triggered her !
@frash: Turned you down, did she? You probably get a lot of women telling you they’re lesbians. In her case it’s actually true!
@Daisy Chainsaw: The poor snowflake (John) won’t mention anything about the real voter fraud as it happens mainly to poor registered black people ..(He’s only interested in whites) Oh,and this actually can affect up to 9% (300,000) of the voting electorate in Winconsin
By any measure it’s an appallingly bad result, like or loath Clinton, Trump is clearly unhinged. Not even in office yet and the nepotism being actively promoted with his inner circle is breathtaking and aside of his Bizzare and deluded pronouncements. The one professor would predicted his win could be proven Right on his other prediction and that is Trumps almost certain impeachment. With is obvious questionable business dealings it’s astonishing nothing was found on him when being vetted in the first place. This lunatic makes Nixon look like mother Theresa.
You left out the part where they said they won’t investigate because it’s nonsense or in other words if there was an investigation Hillary would lose the popular vote due to voter fraud.
@Jimmy Rustle: complete spoof.
It wuz the Lizard people of Magrathea wot voted for Clinton in the first place
There are no lizard people on Magrathea. Only mice. Get your facts right.
@Hugh Mannatee: But but… you can’t see them Hugh, they hide behind the mouses
@Hugh Mannatee: ‘I am the lizard queen’ – Lisa Simpson
Lizard people hiding as mice hiding as rodents on a planet where lizard people hide as humans. Sounds too perfect.
Putin rigging swing states for his stooge.
The auld Establishment don’t like being beat.tough,get used to it.
Lol, still believes Trump isn’t part of the establishment.
If there is evidence of vote-rigging, it needs to be investigated by law enforcement. If it is proved, the book needs to be thrown at Trump. I suspect it won’t be proved though.
I guess the difficulty would be if he had already become President and it was proved, In that case, he would presumably be impeached and replaced by a Vice-President who had been put in place by the similarly flawed process. That’s when there’s a crisis.
Foreign powers hacking into what? the electronic voting system! Or just her emails maybe they are really the same thing! I would have thought with the universal blanket media hatred of Trump that they wouldn’t have had to rely on the ol’Putin card trick. Maybe RT really is more popular than the entire US media combined, now looking at the US media content I can see why!
I hear this on Pat Kenny yesterday. Seeing it fleshed out, it makes a good argument. To be honest the most surprised person in America at the result was Trump himself. If he won democratically that’s one thing, but if democracy wasn’t adhered to, well that’s another matter entirely.
Then should Bernie sanders sue her for election rigging during the primary? It is over she lost because she was too close to wall street and people seen how she and the DNC rigged the primary that lost her the educated young progressive vote then she instead of moving left where the majority of the country are moved to the right and was using George bush’s donor’s. Clinton lost because she backed bad trade deals like NAFTA which killed the Rustbelt states economy’s like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania with the car and steel industries leaving. Hillary Clinton came with way too much baggage, and was unpopular she also had no other message other then I’m with her.
@Ciaran Burke: How many Goldman Sachs advisors has Trump invited to the table? He’s turned out to be Hillary Clinton with worse hair.
Agreed. I despise Trump but Clinton deserved this for what she pulled in the primary against the more electable sanders. Clinton would have started a cold war and an arms race with Russia.
Meh, it’s over, let Flipflop Mc Cheetohface get on with it
Like Brexit, I think the result was wrong and there should be another election
If she did call for a recount and lost again Trump might act on her emails. But maybe she should call for it.
Every move to deny the concession embarrasses the Democratic Party. But she’s got way too much class to go along with the babies throwing their rattles out of the pram
‘Way too much class’
Haha!
Nice one Brendan,
@Brendan Moriarty: class me arse
@William T Smith: Ellen and Hillary…..the stuff of nightmares
Just in case no one is reading this, the title is “Be very skeptical of stolen election claims”. It’s a good article.
Does this count as “fake news”?
So is she blaming the pesky Russians who she said hacked her email but as we know that they were not the source of the leaks? Time to give up on the Russians and find a new baddy. There’s plenty out there that are really bad, like the headhackers she did a lot of business with.
Why didn’t Al Gore do that in Florida
I wonder who the paranoid freaks will try to blame???
It’s not our place to tell Americans how their system should be run, but if it was possible for an Irish politician to comfortably win a popular vote but still lose the election, I reckon we wouldn’t put up with it. At least I hope we wouldn’t.
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Well he’s gone back already on some of the pledges he made on his campaign I guess she could go back on one of hers too.
have your say