Local elections 2023

Analysing the 2023 Local Elections: Part 4: Last Effective Count (LEC); non-transferable votes; who won the last seat and who will be challenging for it in 2027; Bloc votes by council; correlating SF, DUP and Alliance votes; where ‘Middle-NI’ is…

Philip McGuinness on June 8, 2023, 11:16 am

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(Part 1 {evolution of the three bloc votes since 1918, bloc/party plurality, unionist decline problem, Alliance plateauing and perhaps decreasing, } can be found here.) (Part 2 {the myth of unionist vote shredding, turnout, party performance } can be found here.) (Part 3 {identity bloc performance, estimated six-county vote, SDLP and UUP decline, spoiled votes } can be found here.) Last Effective Count (LEC): The LEC involves analysing the votes in the last count that were not eliminated. This includes …

Local Election 2023 Analysis, Part 2: the myth of unionist vote shredding, turnout, party performance:

Philip McGuinness on May 26, 2023, 7:01 am

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(Part 1 can be found here.) Was the unionist vote shredded, and did it lose seats as a result? On Saturday, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson stated “when you dilute the unionist vote sometimes that means unionist candidates don’t get elected”. It is a common refrain from many unionist politicians down the decades that the existence of so many unionist parties shreds the vote and loses seats: this is untrue for the 2023 local election. The DUP gained 23.3% of the vote …