The Senate has changed hands again without a vote. Nf19_1 of the Solidarity Party takes the seat vacated by Emilia, on the second countback in nine days.

It is the second seat to turn over since the 173rd was counted on 2 August, and the chamber that emerged from that election is now two members different from the one the electorate chose.

The arithmetic of the chamber

Emilia sat for the Revolutionary Organization for Social Equality. Nf19_1 sits for Solidarity. With Jotan having replaced the independent Ty last week, the Senate now reads:

Solidarity has gained a Senate seat in the same week it won the presidency, and has gained it without anybody voting. ROSE briefly held four seats after Jotan’s countback and is back to three.

The Civil Liberties Party’s three, plus the independent Sirius it backed, still make four. That was the number that could block a veto override — but the veto now belongs to a Solidarity President, so the four block nothing.

The count

Sixteen candidates were eligible: the field of twenty-eight, less the eleven elected on 2 August and less Jotan, who now sits.

No one reached a quota. The bar walked down from 5 to 1 without anybody clearing it, and the seat went on residual support — the ballot weight left unspent after the original eleven seats were paid for.

Nf19_1 led throughout. The margin over PHon was 0.28 of a ballot’s worth of voting power.

A note on this one

This paper reproduced the first countback from the published ballots exactly, to ten decimal places. It has not been able to reproduce this one.

The rule for a second consecutive vacancy is not the same as the rule for the first, and the paper has not yet established what it is: the figures published by the Commission are consistent neither with re-running the election without the departing members, nor with carrying forward the state left by the first countback. The result above is the Commission’s, reported as published.

We will say so when we can check it.