elections and electorial registration

The Westminster general election of 8 June 2017 resulted in a ‘hung parliament’, with the Conservatives as the largest party but without an overall majority. The result was: Conservative (318), Labour (262), SNP (35), Liberal Democrats (12), DUP (10) and Others (13). The Labour vote surged by over 3.5 million (38%), from 9.347 million in 2015 to 12.878 million in 2017. The Conservatives received 42.4% of the vote, while the Labour share rose from 30.4% in 2015 to 40.0% in 2017, an increase of 9.6 percentage points. Locally, the two largest parties (DUP and Sinn Féin) dominated the election, mainly at the expense of the three smaller parties (UUP, SDLP and Alliance). This post reviews the general election of 2017 in Northern Ireland; it follows a recently published research paper on the election results.

Read More »General election 2017: A detailed look at the result in Northern Ireland

Transferred votes are an extremely important part of the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. In the 2017 Assembly Election, only 18 MLAs had a sufficient number of first preference votes to meet the quota and to be elected at the first count; the remaining 72 were elected at a later stage and required transferred votes. This post examines how votes were transferred between parties.

Read More »Transferred votes in the March 2017 Assembly Election

Yesterday, we published a post which examined the 2016 Assembly election results in terms of candidates and voter turnout. This post, the second in the Election 2016 series, will focus on the results of that poll. The article is based on a more detailed report on Election 2016 by the Research and Information Service, which can be viewed here.

Read More »Election 2016: An analysis of results and transfers

The fifth Assembly election since the return of devolution in 1998 took place on 5 May 2016. The DUP consolidated its position as the largest party in Northern Ireland with the return of its 38 Members, with the UUP and Alliance also ending up with the same number of seats as before. The nationalist parties, however, experienced reverses, with the loss of two seats by the SDLP and one by Sinn Féin. In this post, the first of two articles on Election 2016, the focus is on the candidates and voter turnout. Tomorrow, a second post will look at the results. These posts are largely based on a more detailed and comprehensive election report which can be viewed here.

Read More »Election 2016: Candidates and voter turnout