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A blog from the Northern Ireland Assembly Research and Information Service

Democracy and Government

The Houses of Parliament, London (http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/estatehistory/) (Image by Chensiyuan: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_westminster_palace_panorama_2012_dusk.jpg under Creative Commons: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en)

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

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.

A photograph showing the Houses of Parliament in London
Image by Chensiyuan, under Creative Commons

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Reference volumes on political theory in the Assembly Library

Transferred votes in the March 2017 Assembly Election

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.

Reference volumes on political theory in the Assembly Library

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The plenary chamber of the Northern Ireland Assembly

The representation of women in public life: where does Northern Ireland stand (now)?

Please note that more up-to-date statistics on gender representation can be found in the RaISe research paper Who Runs Northern Ireland? A Summary of Statistics Relating to Gender and Power in 2020.

In the context of International Women’s Day and following the election to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 2 March, we have updated a previous article on the representation of women in public life.

The plenary chamber of the Northern Ireland Assembly

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Students from Shimna College visiting the Northern Ireland Assembly

The Northern Ireland Assembly and the School Curriculum

The Assembly Education Service engaged with more than 80,000 young people during the last mandate. The aim of this work is to inform young people about the work of the Assembly and encourage them to get involved, but how does this work fit into the Northern Ireland Curriculum?

Students from Shimna College visiting the Northern Ireland Assembly
Students from Shimna College visiting the Northern Ireland Assembly

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An image of the Northern Ireland Assembly

Election 2016: An analysis of results and transfers

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.

An image of the Northern Ireland Assembly
The Northern Ireland Assembly: 108 seats were contested during the election in May 2016

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A polling station (Image: Paul Albertella under Creative Commons)

Election 2016: Candidates and voter turnout

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.

A polling station (Image: Paul Albertella under Creative Commons)
A polling station (Image: Paul Albertella under Creative Commons)

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