Northern Ireland Assembly Elections: May 2017?

[joevsimp]

The constituencies have all lost a seat, so it will be harder for the minors to get back in.

Is that officially happebing? I thought it was after the boundary changes.

Looking at the candidates elected in last place; SF, DUP and SDLP would reach lose 5 seats (a total disaster for the latter) UUP, Alliance and PBP would each lose 1. Minor party candidates mostly seemed to get through earlier (although it will kill off any chance of gains for them)

Quota is only going up from 14.2% to 16.7% but there could well be a squeeze on all but the two governing parties as they both go hell for leather to come out on top

[joevsimp]

There are a few different figures that I've seen; none will be 100% accurate since parties will have different strategies for five seat constituencies than they would six seaters - different numbers of candidates standing in each seat; different vote management strategies, that sort of thing.  Its certainly much more complex than just dropping the sixth candidate elected in each seat.

You're right of course but all i was doing was pointing out that its not necessarily as simple as "higher quotas disfavour the minor parties" either since they already have to get over a fairly high hurdle to begin with.

I expect that the Green seat in South Belfast will be vulnerable, even if my simplistic post above considers the second DUP member to be in sixth place there, but more important could be things like SF losing seats in North and East Antrim while unionists lose seats in Mid Ulster and West Tyrone. Not a positive change when trying to move past the conflict

[joevsimp]

Here is 90 seat estimate from the Slugger O'Toole blog

https://sluggerotoole.com/2016/12/22/if-the-2016-assembly-election-had-had-five-seats-per-constituency/ 

It seems UUP gets the worst of it. It loses 5 seats, like SF & DUP but from a lower base.

Nicholas Whyte's work inn this area is generally very good.  But I'm still not sure that there are enough "Other" votes in South Belfast to save both the Alliance and the Greens, although there weren't really enough last tine tbh, they were very fortunate with transfers

[joevsimp]

Here is 90 seat estimate from the Slugger O'Toole blog

https://sluggerotoole.com/2016/12/22/if-the-2016-assembly-election-had-had-five-seats-per-constituency/  

It seems UUP gets the worst of it. It loses 5 seats, like SF & DUP but from a lower base.

Nicholas Whyte's work inn this area is generally very good.  But I'm still not sure that there are enough "Other" votes in South Belfast to save both the Alliance and the Greens, although there weren't really enough last tine tbh, they were very fortunate with transfers

That seems overly pessimistic. There were about 2.2 seats' worth of votes for non-sectarians in Belfast South last time around (taking into account that the non-sectarian parties always receive transfers ahead of sectarian parties); there was a second Alliance candidate who was not elected but did reach rather late rounds and might have also been elected had Anna Lo and her personal popularity still been on the ballot to draw extra votes for the Alliance. If the Alliance nominates someone very popular and/or the Greens really flub, the Greens could lose their seat to the Alliance, but overall I think two non-sectarian seats are quite safe in Belfast South even if a seat is dropped. I think -1 DUP is the most likely result there.

yeah you're right there, I must've miscalculated or missed the second runner from the alliance

[joevsimp]

So it's now officially on for Thursday 2nd March.

[joevsimp]

Voting has now started and results will filter in gradually throughout tomorrow, but the general shadow of the results should be fairly clear from the first preferences.

A guide from the bbc on the PR-STV system I saw this on the BBC and thought you should see it:

NI Assembly Election: How does the STV system work? - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-northern-ireland-2017-38911918

And the results of the final opinion poll.  LucidTalk will also be doing an exit poll tonight.

[joevsimp]

What I'm worried about is that the uup and sdlp have under nominated.  They are running 45 candidates between them which is a bare majority of they all get in,  which they won't. They are calling for people to vote DUP/SF our of office but don't have enough candidates to replace them

[joevsimp]

Fist fref results in for South and East Antrim, no-one has met tree quota in either.

East:  front runners from DUP and UUP look safe.  Ukip miles back.  Alliance, SF and 2nd DUP likely to get seats so DUP loss to redistribution

South: SF's sole candidate tops the poll with uup not far behind.   Former Alliance leader Dabid Ford is further back but should make it which leaves DUP's 3 outgoing MLAs fighting for the last two seats.

Meanwhile in South down,  rumour has UUP and SDLP losing a seat each  and Alliance gaining their first in a historically mostly nationalist constituency

[joevsimp]

North Down is in. DUP, UUP and Alliance elected on the first count.  Second DUP in fourth and Green leader Stephen Agnew in fifth. Both are far enough ahead to get in but i know that the greens had hopes of Agnew topping the poll so a bit of a dissapointment.

So in three of the most strongly unionist cobstituencies, the DUP  have gone from 3 to 2 with the various others holding their ground

[joevsimp]

West Belfast. SF in on the first count and should end up with 4. PBP look on target for the last seat with SDLP losing out and even behind the DUP.

South Belfast. SF elected. SDLP and Alliance look safe with greens fighting with 2 outgoing DUP for last two seats,  should pick up enough transfers to make it

Edit: not so sure now.  There are very close to 2 unionist quotas so Bailey (grn) will have too pick up some from the UUP yup keep her seat.  Not enough alliance and SDLP surpluses about.

[joevsimp]

West Belfast. SF in on the first count and should end up with 4. PBP look on target for the last seat with SDLP losing out and even behind the DUP.

South Belfast. SF elected. SDLP and Alliance look safe with greens fighting with 2 outgoing DUP for last two seats,  should pick up enough transfers to make it

Edit: not so sure now.  There are very close to 2 unionist quotas so Bailey (grn) will have too pick up some from the UUP yup keep her seat.  Not enough alliance and SDLP surpluses about.

I feel pretty good about it. Total Alliance+Green went from 26% to 28% in this election while the DUP total went from 22% to 21%. No way the Greens lose out to the DUP on those first preferences. It'll be DUP v. DUP for the last seat.

Bailey will get the lion's share of transfers from the second SDLP and Alliance candidates (as well as PBP and whatever the Cross Community Labour Alternative is) against the DUPers and do all right with UUP transfers. Which DUPer is out is much less certain and depends strongly on UUP and TUV preferences.

We'll just have to see.  Charter this morning on Twitter was that ELP was done for but she's only just behind.  It'll all cone down to where those UUP transfers go.

Looking at some of the other results,  it looks like one of those "the people have spoken, but we're not quite sure what they said" kind of days

[joevsimp]

as more optimistic posters than me predicted, CCLABALT transfers have put Claire Bailey ahead of Emma Little Pengelly, I winæt be happy until sheæs a couple of hundred clear of the other DUP candidate though, there will be a lot of UUP transfers up for grabs

meanwhile the UUP candidate has been eliminated in South Down, so we'll soon see whether they put Alliance ahead of the SDLP

[joevsimp]

Mike Nesbit holding a press conference, opened with "well I think we all know why we're here...''

good speech, definately ran what Sir Humph would've called a courageous platform