local elections 2019

Donkeys led by aardvarks – having a surname start near the beginning of the alphabet is a big electoral advantage

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on June 15, 2019, 5:48 pm

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In preferential voting systems, such as the electoral system for European, Assembly and Local elections in Northern Ireland, voters have to rank candidates in order of preference (1 for first preference, 2 for second, and so on). A flaw in the system is that voters frequently list their preferences from top to bottom in the order that they appear on the ballot paper, i.e. in alphabetical order of the candidate’s surname. This phenomenon is known as donkey voting. In Australia, …

The Northern Ireland local elections May 2019 – a gender analysis…

Yvonne Galligan on May 21, 2019, 4:32 pm

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Elections to 11 local councils took place in Northern Ireland on Thursday 2 May 2019. Parties fielded 819 candidates in all. Since the previous local elections in 2014, public debates had raged over social issues such as marriage equality and abortion rights. Women’s empowerment was a regular theme that focused on the relative absence of women in political, economic and social decision-making. In this election, women comprised just 27.5% of candidates (Table 1). Table 1: Candidates by party, 2019 (Number, …

Alliance Party gains point to a problem within unionism

Sarah Creighton on May 4, 2019, 10:39 am

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Same old, same old. That was the prediction for Northern Ireland’s 2019 local elections. We’ve still gone one more day of results to come but it’s been anything but boring so far. From Aine Grogan’s stunning victory in Botanic to Paul McCusker’s vote tally in Oldpark, there have been some notable headlines in this election. Progressive unionist Julie-Anne Corr-Johnston lost her seat but People Before Profit’s Fiona Ferguson triumphed. The DUP went up and it elected its first openly gay …