As the fallout from the IFA crisis continues, one thing is now certain for the embattled organisation. The IFA is facing into an election. However, it’s going to take a little time to organise this due to the structure of the organisation and the logistics required to organise an election, particularly at such short notice.

The structure of the IFA is broken down into 947 local branches spread throughout the country and each one becomes a mini-constituency in the context of a presidential election as each will hold its own vote.

Before any election can begin, candidates will have to be declared and then begin to hold a series of meetings around the country so voters can get a chance to see who’s putting themselves forward for the position.

Voting system

Members of each of the 947 branches will then cast their votes and these will be brought to a single location, typically in Dublin, where the votes will be counted. The last time the count took place in the Castleknock hotel, Dublin.

Listen to a discussion of the IFA crisis in our podcast:

The system of voting adopted by the IFA is known as weighted proportional representation, where each branch gets a weighted vote for every 25 members it has who vote. Whichever candidate receives the majority votes from an individual branch, takes all the weighted votes allocated to that branch.

If there are more than two candidates contesting, the election is done on proportional representation, with candidates eliminated from the bottom up until one candidate has more than half the votes and is deemed elected.

It is important to note that only affiliated members of the IFA may vote.

The IFA now faces into the difficult prospect of an election

The IFA executive council received the resignation of the organisation's president, Eddie Downey, during Wednesday’s crisis meeting and now faces into early elections.