AE22 - What happened, and what it means

·      Who is happy?

·      Who is not happy?

·      Anomalies between votes and seats

·      Importance of transfers

·      Marginals: Upper Bann, Strangford, North Antrim, East Londonderry, Foyle

·      Turnout and its effects

·      The parties

·      What would happen if we elected 6 members instead of 5?

 

 

Who is happy?

 

Sinn Féin managed its best ever result taking 29% of the vote and 27 seats. They held every seat they won in 2017, increased their vote share and came fairly close in two other seats. Sinn Féin will nominate the next First Minister when the time comes to form an executive. The party clearly marked its dominance on the Nationalist side of politics, but if Sinn Féin’s goal is a United Ireland then they make not be as pleased. Nationalism lost 4 seats, decreased its overall vote share and came close to losing a fifth seat.

 

Alliance will be over the moon. The party increase its vote share by over 4% points and more than doubled its number of MLAs. Second seats were won in key constituencies with breakthroughs elsewhere being made for the first time. Alliance will be entitled to two seats at the executive this time around which means one definite pick like the other parties even if Alliance again hold the Justice portfolio. Alliance won four seats from Nationalists, three from Unionists (two of which were very narrow wins) and two from the Greens. 

 

Who is not happy?

 

The DUP is no longer the largest party in Northern Ireland, having held that position since 2003. The DUP lost around 7% of its vote share, most of which went to the TUV. On the other hand, the DUP only lost 2 seats, one of them was a narrow loss to Alliance and the other was a seat the party had not expected to win last time around but had to defend this time. It was a perfect selection strategy because fielding more candidates in some constituencies would have resulted in seats lost to the TUV. 

 

The TUV posted its best ever result outside of a European election, and yet still only won one seat! Winning over 7% of the vote and winning only one seat is weird. Alliance used to win eight seats on a similar vote share. The problem for the TUV was that they received a uniform swing. The vote was up consistently across Northern Ireland without a radical improvement anywhere in particular. The DUP were able to balance their candidates ahead of the TUV challengers and it was game over from the first count with the TUV unable to attract enough transfers to get over the line. The TUV were unlucky in Strangford where a Unionist surplus was split between the TUV and UUP, the kicker, the UUP didn’t need the transfers to win but received them because Mike Nesbitt had not yet reached the quota. 

 

The UUP managed to lose only one seat, that of Roy Beggs in East Antrim. The UUP actually outpolled Alliance, who won the seat, but even perfect balancing would not have been enough as Nationalist transfers would have eventually taken the seat out of reach. Ryan McCready was 95 votes shy from taking the DUP seat in Foyle so there is hope for the party going forward. The UUP have decided to take a more liberal approach to politics, but they have some serious work to do to eat into the ground occupied by Alliance.

 

It was the SDLP’s worst election ever. I suspected the SDLP were in trouble, but I also suspected they would fair a bit better relative to Sinn Féin. The SDLP were behind Sinn Féin in every constituency where a Nationalist was elected (except Foyle. Deputy leader Nicola Mallon lost her seat in North Belfast to Alliance while Alliance also took their seats in Upper Bann, Lagan Valley and the second in South Down. Cara Hunter seemed to be in trouble for a while but the bigger threat was from Alliance rather than Sinn Féin. In addition the SDLP were not able to win any of their target seats in West Belfast, Fermanagh & South Tyrone and their long term frustration, Strangford. The SDLP will be concerned about Nationalism’s decline, but perhaps rather more so by the party’s relative weakness compared to Sinn Féin. 

 

The Greens had a bad day. The party lost both of their seats to Alliance. They were squeezed by the Alliance surge in seats they had done well in but where growth had stalled. Had we been electing 108 MLAs the Greens would have actually gained a third seat as Brian Smyth finished runner up in East Belfast. The party may also be encouraged by Mal O’Hara’s showing in North Belfast where he doubled his vote.

 

Anomalies between votes and seats

 

For a PR election this result was weird. The DUP Alliance significantly overperformed their vote share with the TUV underperforming. So why did this happen?

 

When you dig a bit it all makes perfect sense. The TUV vote share increased significantly, but it was a uniform increase across the board, there was not one constituency where they performed really well. This then made it easy for the DUP to keep their candidates ahead of the TUV challengers and then avail of transfers to get over the line. 

 

Alliance finished around 4-5 seats over where their vote share dictates they should have finished. 13.5% should yield 12-13 seats, Alliance won 17 seats and came very close to another. Alliance proved very transfer friendly which saw them over the line in the two marginals of Strangford and North Antrim, but there is a bit more to it. Like the DUP staying ahead of the TUV, Alliance did the same in the nonaligned bloc. While Alliance only had 13.5% of the vote, the non-aligned bloc polled 19%. Winning 17 seats is just around par for this vote share so considering the squeeze on the Greens along with the other non-aligned candidates being too far away from winning seats (apart from PBP in West Belfast) then this result looks spot on. 

 

Importance of transfers

 

As noted above a few parties won more votes than their first preferences should have. This is because of how votes transferred, and indeed how they failed to transfer. It is always difficult to fully analyse transfers because we can never know exactly what position a candidate was placed on the ballot. For example in the last stage of the count in Strangford, 2331.3 of the 3,801.7 SDLP votes were transferred to the Alliance candidate, however we have no way of knowing if Alliance were a second preference or lower. We also have to note that around 1,400 of those SDLP votes were transferred to the SDLP from elsewhere. 

 

 

We can however look at trends from the votes we did see transferred. At stage 7 in Strangford the DUP had a surplus of 677.4. Of these 347.2 transferred to the UUP and 296.1 to the TUV. The UUP’s Mike Nesbitt would have been elected without these votes and the TUV needed them, however subsequent SDLP transfers elected Alliance’s Nick Mathison. 

 

 

In 12 constituencies the top 5 candidates on first preference votes were eventually elected. Those constituencies where transfers changed the order and had a candidate with fewer first preferences elected were; West Belfast, Strangford, Upper Bann, Foyle, East Londonderry and, North Antrim. 

 

We also see that first preference votes are vital. There is no point in voting tactically in these elections. There have been suggestions that Nicola Mallon suffered because voters believed she would be comfortable. Mallon finished 6^th in first preference votes, crucially behind Alliance, but with a Sinn Féin surplus of around 900. All 900 of those votes would have pulled Mallon into the top 5 but transfers never play out that way and with Unionism having almost 4,000 votes more than 2 quotas and the Greens polling well these 900 votes would never have been enough to save her. I don’t know to what extent this was the case, but it shows us that we should vote for our favourite candidates rather than voting tactically.

You can find details of how votes transferred from the BBC NI results page,

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2022/northern-ireland/results  

Marginals:

 

There were quite a few marginals in this election. Inevitably they were solved by transfers in later stages of the count. 

 

Upper Bann

For a while Upper Bann looked like it had 4 candidates battling for 3 seats. Diane Dodds, Doug Beattie, Eoin Tennyson and Liam Mackle all appeared to be in the running for the seats. In the end there were enough Unionist votes for 3 seats and Alliance proved more transfer friendly than Sinn Féin meaning Liam Mackle missed out. SDLP transfers were crucial to deciding the destination of the fifth seat. Dolores Kelly was eliminated on 3,875 votes. In stage 4 those votes were transferred, Alliance received 1,722, Sinn Féin received 1,581 split between 2 candidates (O’Dowd – 823, Mackle – 758). Beattie also received a handy 182. At this stage Tennyson was ahead of Mackle, and while O’Dowd had a healthy surplus he had received some in transfers from other candidates and there were not enough to pull Mackle ahead of Tennyson. Both candidates were ahead of the Beattie and Dodds, but the 4,626 TUV votes changed that in the next stage. Tennyson defeated Mackle by 376 votes after 8 stages of the count.

 

North Antrim

The DUP lost a seat in North Antrim to Alliance. Patricia O’Lynn finished 288.3 votes ahead of Mervyn Storey after 6 stages of the count. In the final stage 2,726.3 TUV votes were transferred at the same time as 2,662 SDLP votes. O’Lynn received 2,225.9 votes, Paul Frew received 1,539.8 and Mervyn Storey received 648.6 votes. It is hard to say whether more of the TUV or SDLP vote failed to transfer, but Alliance benefitted from the Unionist transfers splitting between 2 candidates allowing O’Lynn to slip in through the middle to win. 

 

 

Strangford

This was the TUV’s best chance at a gain and their candidate Stephen Cooper actually finished third on first preference votes! Cooper lost out on the final seat finishing 249.8 votes behind Nick Mathison of Alliance. Alliance did not balance their vote well here, but Mathison proved to be very transfer friendly finishing on 6,173.8 votes having only received 2,822 first preference votes. The SDLP again made the difference. Conor Houston was eliminated on stage 8 with 3,801.7 votes, Mathison received 2,331.3 of them to overtake Cooper and take the final seat. There were no Unionist votes left to be distributed and Cooper finished as runner up despite a strong showing on first preferences. 

 

In reality the seat was even closer. After stage 7 Houston had 3,780.7 votes with Mathison on 3,734.9. Houston had a lead of 36.8 votes. Kellie Armstrong of Alliance had been elected on the first count having exceeded the quota by 204 votes. From this surplus Houston only received 20.9 votes while Mathison received 107.6 votes. This gave Mathison a lead of 40.8. Had he not overtaken Houston, the TUV probably would have won the seat. 

 

East Londonderry

After the first count in East Londonderry it looked like Sinn Féin were set to make a gain at the expense of the SDLP. Kathleen McGurk of Sinn Féin polled 4,500 first preference votes while the SDLP’s Cara Hunter was on 3,664. Alliance’s Chris McCaw was also in the running with 3,338 votes. 

 

East Londonderry had several independent candidates who were transfer friendly, including Claire Sugden who was a transfer magnet. After 7 stages of the count McGurk had 4,715 votes, however the SDLP had a 14.6 vote lead over Alliance. With Alliance being eliminated on 4,498.6 votes, the SDLP received 1,971.2 while Sinn Féin only received 102.9 meaning Hunter took an unassailable lead. On the final count this looked comfortable for Hunter and the SDLP but in reality the seat was won by fewer than 15 votes. Had McCaw got ahead of Hunter then SDLP votes would have been crucial in deciding the seat between Alliance and Sinn Féin. Alliance probably would have been favourites with more than 1,000 Unionist transfers left, most of them being part of Claire Sugden’s surplus which came from everywhere. Interestingly one of the independents was Stephanie Quigley who left the SDLP recently, a majority of her votes actually transferred to Unionists rather than Cara Hunter.

 

Foyle

This was a marginal between the two Unionist candidates fighting for the fifth seat. Unionism had a comfortable quota here and both the DUP and UUP candidates hung on until the end. The DUP had a 357 vote lead on first preferences. Elizabeth Neely of the TUV was eliminated on count 4 with 501.4. The DUP received 282 and the UUP 194. The gap at this stage was 442.9 votes. Middleton had increased his lead over McCready by 85.9 votes at this stage. After this, with no other Unionists left, transfers were likely to favour the UUP. 

 

After count 9 Aontú had 2,697.3 votes. With Emmett Doyle’s elimination the DUP received 176 votes while the UUP only received 38.6 votes. Middleton’s lead was at 372.1 after 9 stages. On stage 13 of the count Middleton had 4,730.6 votes and McCready had 4,635.2 votes. Middleton won the seat by 95.4 votes with TUV and Aontú transfers arguably being the difference maker in the marathon count.

 

Turnout and its effects

It is clear that Sinn Féin was able to get its vote out to a greater extent than other parties in this election. Of the 7 constituencies where Sinn Féin has an MP, 6 of them were in the top 6 for voter turnout. Interestingly in 3 of the constituencies where the DUP hold the Westminster seat a Sinn Féin candidate exceeded the quota on the first count. The same thing happened in both constituencies held by the SDLP. 13 of Sinn Féin’s 27 MLA’s reached the quota on the first count. 

 

There are 5 constituencies which did not elect a Nationalist MLA this time around, Sinn Féin polled a record vote share in 3 of them, being just 0.1% lower in another. The fifth was probably the only seat where the 2019 swing from Nationalism to Alliance held up this time. 

 

The DUP holds the Westminster seat in 4 of the bottom 6 constituencies for turnout. 

 

The evidence suggests that Sinn Féin voters were more motivated to vote this time around. Perhaps Nationalists did indeed want to see a Nationalist first minister and backed Sinn Féin to deliver it for the first time. 

 

This difference in turnout had an effect in some areas. There were 2 marginals which went against Unionists and relied on Nationalist transfers to settle the final seat. Sinn Féin also held all of their seats despite 4 Nationalist seats falling. They were also close to two gains. The high turnout of Sinn Féin voters certainly had a noticeable effect in this election.

 

The Parties:

 

DUP

The DUP lost 3 seats in this election. Strangford and North Antrim were lost to Alliance. The first was an expected loss but the TUV came close. North Antrim was a big surprise with TUV transfers splitting between 2 DUP candidates and Alliance proving very transfer friendly. Alex Easton retained his seat in North Down, standing as an independent having quit the DUP last year. 

 

The DUP vote declined by 6.7% and under normal circumstances this would lead to more seats being lost. The DUP will be encouraged that they managed to balance their candidates well enough to hold most seats. The party is also bringing some fresh faces into the assembly this time around with younger members like Phillip Brett, Diane Forsyth and Deborah Erskine being elected as MLAs for the first time.

 

The DUP may have reasons to be hopeful. They have seen off the threat of a more attractive looking UUP and can say with more confidence now that the TUV cannot win the seats they are challenging for. If the DUP can improve its image and if there is movement on the NI Protocol, then the party will be very confident of improving next time around. 

 

 

UUP

The UUP were panicked on the first day of the count. They feared losing Doug Beattie and Mike Nesbitt, and did lose Roy Beggs with no gins looking likely. In the end they only lost one seat and came within 95 votes of a balancing out that lost seat with a gain. 

 

Beattie’s leadership guided the UUP in this election. He selected and promoted certain candidates and made the decision to field second candidates in seats where the UUP already held a seat but did not have a quota. Beattie has tried to lead the UUP into the more liberal end of politics, but for now that space is dominated by Alliance.

 

The UUP promoted new candidates, they had more women, they had LGBT candidates, they had a Catholic candidate, a DUP defector and they even had a former Irish Senator. None of these candidates won (though McCready, the former DUP member, came close). The UUP even lost their only female candidate with Tom Elliott defeating party colleague Rosemary Barton.

 

Polling had suggested the UUP might be in for an improvement on 2017 but their vote share dropped by 1.7%. It is likely Alliance continued to eat into their vote while disaffected DUP voters were more likely to vote TUV. The other problem was low Unionist turnout. If Beattie is to be successful he not only has to attract voters from other parties, but attract Unionists who do not bother to vote. 

 

The worst thing the UUP can do is change its stance again, if the UUP are to be successful then the public needs to understand what they stand for, they cannot simply be the party for Unionists to vote for if they do not like the DUP. In fairness to Beattie, he has not been in the job long. I suspect the party will seek to promote its new candidates in next year’s council election and hope to replicate Alliance’s success at finding popular candidates who can go on to win elections. 

 

TUV

This was a frustrating election for the TUV. The party had an excellent vote share and yet failed to pick up any other seats. TUV growth came almost exclusively from annoyed DUP voters wanting to send a message. The party grew consistently across Northern Ireland and that consistent growth meant winning seats would be difficult if the growth was not staggering.

 

The TUV were runners up in 5 constituencies and would have won all of them if we still elected 6 members per constituency. This is the most of any party.

 

The TUV can look at this election in two ways. The first is to say they pose a legitimate threat to the DUP and voters are willing to change allegiance unless the DUP delivers more effectively. The second is to view this as the last chance for the party to make serious inroads and move away from the image of being a 1 man band. It is unclear what will happen with the TUV in the future, but if they can repeat this performance in the council elections next year then they will suddenly have councillors all over the province. 

 

SF

Sinn Féin will be delighted with the result. Many commentators (myself included) predicted not just a loss of seats but a loss of vote share to the centre. In fact Sinn Féin increased their vote, though this was largely to the detriment of the SDLP rather than drawing from the centre or from a weakening of Unionism. 

 

Sinn Féin effectively got their vote out, much more than other parties, and the electorate were seemingly motivated to elect a Nationalist first minister for the first time. This meant that Sinn Féin won all of its vulnerable seats comfortably.

 

Sinn Féin might be privately frustrated that they were unable to add to their 27 seats. In 2016 Sinn Féin held seats in Upper Bann, East Antrim, they also came close in East Londonderry. After the constituencies dropped to 5 seats East Antrim was put out of their reach but the other 2 remain possible. 

 

Sinn Féin actually topped the poll in Upper Bann and yet, while the DUP retained both seats, Sinn Féin only won one. Transfers did not fall in their favour and TUV transfers saw the Unionists over the line. East Londonderry was another story of transfers with Sinn Féin’s second runner only managing to gain 317 voters over 10 stages. For context Cara Hunter (SDLP and eventual winner) gained almost 3,000, Alliance’s Chris McCaw gained over 1,000 and independent Unionist Claire Sugden gained over 4,000!

 

I suspect Sinn Féin were not particularly confident of actually winning these seats because the candidates were not close enough to each other on first preferences. I suspect this was deliberate so as to not risk losing a sitting MLA to their running mate. Had Sinn Féin seen these seats as probable rather than possible gains then those candidates would have been very close to each other on first preferences. 

 

SDLP

The SDLP had their worst election ever. They lost 4 seats, almost lost another and failed to gain any of their 3 targets. Sinn Féin widened the gap and the SDLP also lost votes to Alliance. Among the SDLP losses were deputy leader of the party Nicola Mallon and one of the most popular MLAs across the board, Pat Catney. All 4 seats were vulnerable and the SDLP needed to split the Sinn Féin candidates in 3 of them but they fell further behind.

 

Polling was poor for the SDLP and they would have needed lots of transfers to hold their seats. The problem was they needed Alliance transfers and Alliance were outpolling the SDLP in those key seats. 

 

The SDLP’s campaign focused on attacking the DUP. I suspected this was a bad idea from the beginning. Nobody believes the SDLP were actually a rival of the DUP and if voters wanted to send a message to the DUP then the SDLP was certainly not the first choice for this. Nationalists who want to give the DUP a kicking would vote Sinn Féin (and they did) while Unionists wanting to send a message to the DUP would split between Alliance and the TUV depending on their outlook (Which they did). It seemed like the SDLP were lost in this campaign and failed to find the idea to win over voters. They went for the low hanging fruit of targeting the least popular party on social media, and it backfired badly. 

 

While I think the UUP need to stick with their current direction the SDLP probably do not have the same option. I’m not sure Eastwood needs to resign as leader, but perhaps he has to consider if having their 2 most popular members working in London is the best way forward. The SDLP need to make changes to appeal to their core voter base, win back voters from Sinn Féin and prevent more from flocking to Alliance. It is clear they have popular members, but they need to work out how to back that up with policy that voters can turn up to back. 

 

 

Aontú

This was Aontú’s first Assembly election and they failed to win any seats. I don’t think they believed they would win any but wanted to present an alternative for pro-life Sinn Féin voters. It is possible they did more harm to the SDLP than Sinn Féin. 

 

Aontú actually have reasons to be hopeful with decent performances in many areas. I know they polled relatively poorly,  but they will certainly have their eyes on gaining a few council seats next year. 

 

APNI

Alliance could hardly have hoped for a better day, the party more than doubled its representation at Stormont, winning seats from Unionism, Nationalism and the centre. They also came close to winning seat number 18. As such, Alliance is now comfortably the third largest party in Stormont and will be entitled to a second seat in the executive. 

 

Alliance gained votes from Unionism and Nationalism, balanced their vote well in constituencies where they wanted to elect 2 and remained as transfer friendly as ever. It was a recipe for a perfect day. Alliance had spent years building the party around Naomi Long and then promoting new candidates in their areas. It paid off and they saw off a potential loss of voters to the UUP. 

 

The only negative to talk about is the reduction in Alliance vote share form 2019. In reality this regression was inevitable, Alliance benefitted heavily from tactical voting in 2019’s Westminster election where they placed themselves as the key rivals to the DUP in key constituencies. They also fielded candidates in every constituency unlike the other parties. In the European election the party capitalised on Naomi Long’s popularity and low turnout for the other blocs. In 2019 Naomi Long won 18.5% of the vote with 105,929 votes, this time they won 13.5% with 116,681 votes. In fact Alliance should be encouraged by this discrepancy, because it shows their voters tend to me more motivated to come out and vote. 

 

Greens 

The Green Party’s vote share barely changed, but they lost both of their seats. South Belfast was always going to be a tough defence and Alliance balanced their candidates well to remain ahead of Claire Bailley. Losing North Down was more of a surprise but Steven Agnew may have had a large personal vote which Rachel Woods was unable to hold. Woods had been co-opted in Stormont after Agnew resigned so this was her first Assembly election as a candidate. 

 

It isn’t all bad news for the Greens, they were unlucky and if we still had 6 seat constituencies they would have held both seats and made a gain in East Belfast. The party looks set to retain all of its council seats next year, but the chances of gains look slim right now. 

 

PBP

People Before Profit retained their seat in West Belfast on a decreased vote share and failed to win their key target in Foyle. The party was squeezed out by Sinn Féin and, to a lesser extent, Alliance. People Before Profit will have plenty of work to do to ensure they retain their seats next year, they will not want to be seen as Garry Carroll’s party, but rather a genuine challenger to the larger parties. 

 

The decrease in People Before Profit’s vote share was a surprise, but their vote decreased where Sinn Féin were strong. PBP will hope to win those voters back in future election cycles when there is not a symbolic battle for the First Minister job. 

 

What would happen if we elected 6 members instead of 5? 

I noticed some talk on Twitter that it was both a blunder for Unionism to back a drop from 108 seats to 90 seats. The 108 seat assembly was designed to give minorities a voice so how much would have changed under this scenario?

 

It is not as easy as simply identifying the runner up because quotas would change meaning more votes to be transferred from the top. So while the UUP were runners up in Foyle it would be foolish to suggest that 2 Unionists would have been elected here. 

 

Trying to account for likely transfers and smaller quotas I estimated that with an extra 18 MLAs it would split as seen below. 

 

Foyle would be very close between PBP and the SDLP, East Belfast would be tight between the Greens and the TUV and, Sinn Féin would be close in East Antrim, but I suspect the former would ahead in all of those.