electorate

Stormont’s falling turnout is the reason it is losing touch with wider public opinion

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This is David McCann arguing that the current malaise in Northern Irish politics has its roots in the fact that no less than 160,000 people stopped voting after 1998. From  June 1998 to March 2011 electoral turnout dropped from 70% to 54.5%. Whilst the UUP and the SDLP lost a staggering 84,000 votes each, SF only picked up 35,000 and the DUP 52,000. McCann’s thesis is that this disengagement is a prime cause of the subsequent drift of Stormont politics from the concerns of …

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Eligible electorate increases 9.2% from 2007 Assembly election

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eligible electorate - changes between 2007 and 2011 assembly election

The Electoral Office for NI have released the eligible electorate numbers for the three elections running on Thursday. Some of the changes can be put down to boundary changes, others are about an increasing population. But a lot must be down to increased voter registration. The overall eligible electorate in NI has risen from 1,107,904 in March 2007 to 1,210,009 – that’s a 9.2% rise. The chart shows the changes per constituency, in descending order of percentage change. Update – …

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Election 2010: Smarter GB electorate playing with the political classes?

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Alex Kane reckons that the Tories will still make it across the line in this election. My own view is that the forces at work are more complex than at any time in my memory (and I can go back to about 1970), not least because of the complex tools available via the net (take a bow Electoral Calculus). I suspect the humble two party swingometer is functionally dead from here on in. Regardless of the outcome of this election. …

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