Misplaced Pages

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83-618: Belfast Central was a constituency of the Parliament of Northern Ireland . Belfast Central was a borough constituency comprising part of central Belfast . It was created in 1929, when the House of Commons (Method of Voting and Redistribution of Seats) Act (Northern Ireland) 1929 introduced first-past-the-post elections throughout Northern Ireland. Belfast Central was created by the division of Belfast West into four new constituencies. It survived unchanged, returning one member of Parliament, until

166-424: A single-winner voting rule. Voters typically mark one candidate as their favorite, and the candidate with the largest number of first-preference marks (a plurality ) is elected, regardless of whether they have over half of all votes (a majority ). It is sometimes called first-past-the-post (FPTP) in reference to gambling on horse races (where bettors would guess which horse they thought would be first past

249-625: A "Parliament full of second-choices who no one really wanted but didn't really object to either." However, FPP often results in strategic voting , which has prevented extreme left- and right-wing parties from gaining parliamentary seats , as opposed to proportional representation . This also implies that strategic voting is necessary to keep extremists from gaining seats, which often fails to materialize in practice for multiple reasons. In comparison, many other systems encourage voters to rank other candidates and thereby not (or at least less often to) have to strategically compromise on their first choice at

332-427: A contributory factor in the country adopting the apartheid system after the 1948 general election in that country. Leblang and Chan found that a country's electoral system is the most important predictor of a country's involvement in war, according to three different measures: (1) when a country was the first to enter a war; (2) when it joined a multinational coalition in an ongoing war; and (3) how long it stayed in

415-624: A few matters excluded from its remit, the most important of which are: succession to the Crown, making of peace or war, armed forces, honours, naturalisation, some central taxes and postal services (a full list is in section 4 of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 ). The Parliament did not try to infringe the terms of the Government of Ireland Act; on only one occasion did the United Kingdom government advise

498-518: A geographical base, parties that are small UK-wide can still do very well". On the other hand, minor parties that do not concentrate their vote usually end up getting a much lower proportion of seats than votes, as they lose most of the seats they contest and 'waste' most of their votes. The ERS also says that in FPP elections using many separate districts "small parties without a geographical base find it hard to win seats". Make Votes Matter said that in

581-542: A government without being the largest party. The use of proportional representation (PR) may enable smaller parties to become decisive in the country's legislature and gain leverage they would not otherwise enjoy, although this can be somewhat mitigated by a large enough electoral threshold . They argue that FPP generally reduces this possibility, except where parties have a strong regional basis. A journalist at Haaretz noted that Israel's highly proportional Knesset "affords great power to relatively small parties, forcing

664-431: A majority of seats just requires receiving more than half the vote in more than half the districts—even if the other party receives all the votes cast in the other districts—so just over a quarter of the vote is theoretically enough to win a majority in the legislature. With enough candidates splitting the vote in a district, the total number of votes needed to win can be made arbitrarily small . Under first-past-the-post,

747-544: A majority of the votes cast in Canada only three times since 1921: in 1940 , 1958 and 1984 . In the United Kingdom, 19 of the 24 general elections since 1922 have produced a single-party majority government. In all but two of them ( 1931 and 1935 ), the leading party did not take a majority of the votes across the UK. In some cases, this can lead to a party receiving the plurality or even majority of total votes yet still failing to gain

830-505: A minor party in protest at its policies, since to do so would likely only help the major party's main rival. Rather than curtailing extreme voices, FPP today empowers the (relatively) extreme voices of the Labour and Conservative party memberships." For example, the electoral system of Hungary , a mixed system dominated by FPP have seen Fidesz (right-wing, populist party) win 135 seats in the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary election and has remained

913-470: A plurality of legislative seats. This results in a situation called a majority reversal or electoral inversion . Famous examples of the second-place party (in votes nationally) winning a majority of seats include the elections in Ghana in 2012 , New Zealand in 1978 and 1981 , and the United Kingdom in 1951 . Famous examples of the second placed party (in votes nationally) winning a plurality of seats include

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996-622: A powerful electoral incentive for large parties to target similar segments of voters with similar policies. The effect of this reduces political diversity in a country because the larger parties are incentivized to coalesce around similar policies. The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network describes India's use of FPTP as a "legacy of British colonialism". Duverger's law is an idea in political science which says that constituencies that use first-past-the-post methods will lead to two-party systems , given enough time. Economist Jeffrey Sachs explains: The main reason for America's majoritarian character

1079-492: A principle known in political science as Duverger's Law . Smaller parties are trampled in first-past-the-post elections. However, most countries with first-past-the-post elections have multiparty legislatures (albeit with two parties larger than the others), the United States being the major exception. There is a counter-argument to Duverger's Law, that while on the national level a plurality system may encourage two parties, in

1162-460: A public holiday and the practices of the postal service, they arrived an hour after the election. Requests for a recount were denied. (It is doubtful whether the three votes would have been sufficient to elect a Senator under the election system, since they would not have achieved a complete single transferable vote quota alone and the Unionist votes were likely to transfer so heavily to each other that

1245-483: A significant number of safe seats , where a representative is sheltered from any but the most dramatic change in voting behavior. In the UK, the Electoral Reform Society estimates that more than half the seats can be considered as safe. It has been claimed that members involved in the 2009 expenses scandal were significantly more likely to hold a safe seat. The House of Commons of England originated in

1328-539: A small party may draw votes and seats away from a larger party that it is more similar to, and therefore give an advantage to one it is less similar to. For example, in the 2000 United States presidential election , the left-leaning Ralph Nader drew more votes from the left-leaning Al Gore , resulting in Nader spoiling the election for the Democrats. According to the political pressure group Make Votes Matter , FPTP creates

1411-557: A small percentage of votes. It had been felt by some that Northern Ireland should use the same first-past-the-post system that was in place in the rest of the UK . By the time the first-past-the-post system was implemented for the 1929 election, the Republicans had few or no candidates and pro-separatist electors were represented almost solely by the Nationalist Party . Despite the change in

1494-453: A system based on plurality voting spread over many separate districts is that the larger parties, and parties with more geographically concentrated support, gain a disproportionately large share of seats, while smaller parties with more evenly distributed support gain a disproportionately small share. This is because in doing this they win many seats and do not 'waste' many votes in other areas. As voting patterns are similar in about two-thirds of

1577-563: A tendency for Independentista voters to support Populares candidates. This phenomenon is responsible for some Popular victories, even though the Estadistas have the most voters on the island, and is so widely recognised that Puerto Ricans sometimes call the Independentistas who vote for the Populares "melons", because that fruit is green on the outside but red on the inside (in reference to

1660-461: A vote could be considered as wasted . FPP wastes fewer votes when it is used in two-party contests. But waste of votes and minority governments are more likely when large groups of voters vote for three, four or more parties as in Canadian elections. Canada uses FPP and only two of the last seven federal Canadian elections ( 2011 and 2015 ) produced single-party majority governments. In none of them did

1743-417: A war after becoming a party to it. When the people are fairly represented in parliament, more of those groups who may object to any potential war have access to the political power necessary to prevent it. In a proportional democracy, war and other major decisions generally requires the consent of the majority. The British human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell , and others, have argued that Britain entered

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1826-406: Is a prospect of a change in representation, leaving safer areas excluded from participation in an active campaign. Political parties operate by targeting districts, directing their activists and policy proposals toward those areas considered to be marginal, where each additional vote has more value. This feature of FPTP has often been used by its supporters in contrast to proportional systems. In

1909-551: Is now part of Belfast North and Belfast West with most of the former seat now part of the New Lodge ward . The constituency was one of the most staunchly nationalist in Belfast. It was initially held by Nationalist Party members, then later by a variety of labour movement activists and members of smaller nationalist parties. In 1953, a split between three Labour candidates led to the Unionist candidate finishing just 576 votes behind

1992-407: Is related to kingmakers in that the lesser-known candidates may encourage their supporters to rank the other candidates a certain way. Supporters of electoral reform generally see this as a positive development, and claim that alternatives certain to FPP will encourage less negative and more positive campaigning, as candidates will have to appeal to a wider group of people. Opinions are split on whether

2075-489: Is that a portion of the electorate (2.7%) voted for Ralph Nader of the Green Party , and exit polls indicated that more of them would have preferred Gore (45%) to Bush (27%). The election was ultimately determined by the results from Florida , where Bush prevailed over Gore by a margin of only 537 votes (0.009%), which was far exceeded by the 97488 (1.635%) votes cast for Nader in that state. In Puerto Rico , there has been

2158-408: Is the electoral system for Congress. Members of Congress are elected in single-member districts according to the "first-past-the-post" (FPTP) principle, meaning that the candidate with the plurality of votes is the winner of the congressional seat. The losing party or parties win no representation at all. The first-past-the-post election tends to produce a small number of major parties, perhaps just two,

2241-685: The 2017 general election , "the Green Party, Liberal Democrats and UKIP (minor, non-regional parties) received 11% of votes between them, yet they shared just 2% of seats", and in the 2015 general election , "[t]he same three parties received almost a quarter of all the votes cast, yet these parties shared just 1.5% of seats." According to Make Votes Matter, in the 2015 UK general election UKIP came in third in terms of number of votes (3.9 million/12.6%), but gained only one seat in Parliament, resulting in one seat per 3.9 million votes. The Conservatives on

2324-607: The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland . However, the replacement of Southern Ireland by the Irish Free State led to the abolition of the post of Lord Lieutenant. Instead, a new office – Governor of Northern Ireland – was created on 12 December 1922. Initially the Parliament met in Belfast's City Hall but then moved to the Presbyterian Church's Assembly's College (later Union Theological College ), where it remained during

2407-571: The Lord Mayor of Belfast and the Mayor of Derry . The Senate generally had the same party balance as the House of Commons, though abstaining parties and very small parties were not represented. Because of this, and its dependence on the House of Commons for election, it had virtually no political impact. The British monarch was originally to have been represented in both Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland by

2490-651: The Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973 . The Parliament of Northern Ireland was bicameral , consisting of a House of Commons with 52 seats, and an indirectly elected Senate with 26 seats. The Sovereign was represented by the Governor (initially by the Lord Lieutenant ), who granted royal assent to Acts of Parliament in Northern Ireland, but executive power rested with the Prime Minister ,

2573-534: The Parliament of Northern Ireland was temporarily suspended in 1972, and then formally abolished in 1973. The constituency consisted of inner city areas of Belfast equivalent to the modern areas of Unity, Brown Square, John Street and Lancaster Street. Residential redevelopment caused the electorate to fall sharply from 20,399 in 1929 to 6,384 in 1969. By the time of the dissolution of the Stormont Parliament, it had just over 2,500 voters. The constituency

Belfast Central (Northern Ireland Parliament constituency) - Misplaced Pages Continue

2656-434: The 1970s , where the first round selects two major contenders who go on to receive the overwhelming majority of votes. [REDACTED] Suppose that Tennessee is holding an election on the location of its capital . The population is concentrated around four major cities. All voters want the capital to be as close to them as possible. The options are: The preferences of each region's voters are: In FPTP, only

2739-414: The 20th century, many countries that previously used FPP have abandoned it in favor of other electoral systems, including the former British colonies of Australia and New Zealand . Most U.S. states still officially retain FPP for most elections. However, the combination of partisan primaries with the two-party system mean the country has effectively used a variation on the two-round system since

2822-554: The Condorcet and Borda count methods, which were respectively reinvented in the 18th century by the Marquis de Condorcet and Jean-Charles de Borda . More serious investigation into electoral systems came in the late 18th century, when several thinkers independently proposed systems of proportional representation to elect legislatures. The single transferable vote in particular was invented in 1819 by Thomas Wright Hill , and first used in

2905-553: The House of Commons should be by single transferable vote (STV), though the Parliament was given the power to alter the electoral system from three years after its first meeting. The STV system was the subject of criticism from grassroots Unionists , but because the three-year period ended during the Labour government of 1924, the Stormont government decided not to provoke the known egalitarian sympathies of many Labour backbenchers and held

2988-478: The Iraq War primarily because of the political effects of FPP and that proportional representation would have prevented Britain's involvement in the war. To a greater extent than many others, the first-past-the-post method encourages "tactical voting". Voters have an incentive to vote for a candidate who they predict is more likely to win, as opposed to their preferred candidate who may be unlikely to win and for whom

3071-557: The King to withhold royal assent. This was the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) which abolished proportional representation in local government elections; the issue was referred to London and royal assent was eventually given. The output of legislation was high for a devolved Parliament, though some of the Acts were adaptations of recently passed acts by the United Kingdom parliament. It

3154-634: The Middle Ages as an assembly representing the gentry of the counties and cities of the Kingdom, each of which elected either one or two members of parliament (MPs) by block plurality voting . Starting in the 19th century, electoral reform advocates pushed to replace these multi-member constituencies with single-member districts. Elections to the Canadian House of Commons have always been conducted with FPP. The United States broke away from British rule in

3237-506: The Nationalist candidate would not reach quota throughout the rounds of counting.) From later in 1925 to 1927, the Nationalist Party members took their seats for the first time. For the 1929 general election the Unionists replaced the proportional representation system blamed for their bad performance in 1925. The new boundaries set the pattern for politics until Stormont was abolished;

3320-852: The Order for seven years for visiting nationalist MP Joe Devlin on his deathbed. A fully digitised copy of the Commons' debates (187,000 printed pages of Parliamentary Debates) is available online. First-past-the-post Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results First-preference plurality ( FPP ) also known as single-member district plurality ( SMDP )—often shortened simply to plurality —is

3403-402: The Order, one because his daughter married a Catholic, one to become Minister of Community Relations in 1970, and the third was expelled for attending a Catholic religious ceremony. Of the 95 Stormont MPs who did not become cabinet ministers, 87 were Orangemen. Every unionist senator, with one exception, between 1921 and 1969 was an Orangeman. One of these senators, James Gyle , was suspended from

Belfast Central (Northern Ireland Parliament constituency) - Misplaced Pages Continue

3486-531: The Parliament was dissolved in 1972. In 1968 the government abolished the Queen's University constituency ( university constituencies had been abolished at Westminster with effect from 1950) and created four new constituencies in the outskirts of Belfast where populations had grown. This change helped the Unionists, as they held only two of the university seats but won all four of the newly created seats. There had, however, long been calls from outside Unionism to abolish

3569-652: The Stormont seats (as opposed to local council wards) were gerrymandered against Nationalists is disputed by historians (since the number of Nationalists elected under the two systems barely changed), though it is agreed that losses under the change to single-member constituency boundaries were suffered by independent unionists, the Liberals and the Northern Ireland Labour Party . Population movements were so small that these boundaries were used almost everywhere until

3652-480: The Unionists never fell below 33 seats. In the 1930s, the phrase " A Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People " was a debated term. The 1938 general election was called when the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Neville Chamberlain was negotiating a settlement of outstanding disputes with Éamon de Valera, whose new constitution laid claim to Northern Ireland, and the 1949 election

3735-560: The Unionists split over O'Neill's tentative reforms at the 1969 general election and Ian Paisley 's Protestant Unionist Party began to win by-elections. The new nationalist party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party , withdrew from Stormont in July 1971 over the refusal of an inquiry into Royal Ulster Constabulary actions in Derry . Stormont was abolished and Direct Rule from Westminster

3818-434: The absence of) of party primaries maybe strengthen or weaken this effect. In general, FPP has no mechanism that would benefit more moderate candidates and many supporters of FPP defend it electing the largest and most unified (even if more polarizing) minority over a more consensual majority supported candidate. Allowing people into parliament who did not finish first in their district was described by David Cameron as creating

3901-450: The alternative vote (better known as instant runoff voting outside the UK) achieves this better than other systems. Supporters and opponents of FPP often argue whether FPP advantages or disadvantages extremist parties. Among single-winner systems, FPP suffers from the center squeeze phenomenon , where more moderate candidates are squeezed out by more extreme ones. However, the different types (or

3984-416: The country in question in circumstances where the government's legislative agenda has broad public support, albeit potentially divided across party lines, or at least benefits society as a whole. However handing a legislative voting majority to a government which lacks popular support can be problematic where said government's policies favor only that fraction of the electorate that supported it, particularly if

4067-436: The districts, it is more likely that a single party will hold a majority of legislative seats under FPP than happens in a proportional system, and under FPP it is rare to elect a majority government that actually has the support of a majority of voters. Because FPP permits many wasted votes , an election under FPP is more easily gerrymandered. Through gerrymandering , electoral areas are designed deliberately to unfairly increase

4150-399: The election a center squeeze . By contrast, both Condorcet methods and score voting would return Nashville (the capital of Tennessee). Perhaps the most striking effect of FPP is the fact that the number of a party's seats in a legislature has nothing to do with its vote count in an election, only in how those votes were geographically distributed. This has been a target of criticism for

4233-608: The elections in Canada in 2019 and 2021 as well as in Japan in 2003 . Even when a party wins more than half the votes in an almost purely two-party-competition, it is possible for the runner-up to win a majority of seats. This happened in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in 1966 , 1998 , and 2020 and in Belize in 1993 . Even with only two parties and equally-sized constituencies, winning

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4316-487: The electoral system and accusations of gerrymandering , the Nationalist Party lost 9.5% share of the vote, but still gained a seat. The more moderate Northern Ireland Labour Party and Ulster Liberal Party both gained in vote share but lost seats. The boundary changes for 1929 were not made by an impartial boundary commission but by the Unionist government, for which it was accused of gerrymandering. The charges that

4399-407: The electorate divides on tribal, religious, or urban–rural lines. There is also the perceived issue of unfair coalitions where a smaller party can form a coalition with other smaller parties and form a government, without a clear mandate as was the case in the 2009 Israeli legislative election where the leading party Kadima , was unable to form a coalition so Likud , a smaller party, managed to form

4482-531: The expected report of the Boundary Commission required by the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1922. The Boundary Commission was expected to recommend the transfer of many border areas to the Irish Free State , and the Unionist election slogan was "Not an Inch!". They lost eight seats in Belfast and County Antrim , where the issue of the border had far less resonance. Sinn Féin had fought in 1921, but by 1925

4565-529: The finishing post). In social choice , FPP is generally treated as a degenerate variant of ranked voting , where voters rank the candidates, but only the first preference matters. As a result, FPP is usually implemented with a choose-one ballot , where voters place a single bubble next to their favorite candidate. FPP has been used to elect the British House of Commons since the Middle Ages . Throughout

4648-407: The first preferences matter. As such, the votes would be counted as 42% for Memphis, 26% for Nashville, 17% for Knoxville, and 15% for Chattanooga. Since Memphis has the most votes, it would win a FPTP election, even though it is far from the center of the state and a majority of voters would prefer Nashville . Similarly, instant-runoff voting would elect Knoxville , the easternmost city. This makes

4731-439: The government to give in to political blackmail and to reach compromises"; Tony Blair , defending FPP, argued that other systems give small parties the balance of power, and influence disproportionate to their votes. The concept of kingmakers is adjacent to how Winston Churchill criticized the alternative vote system as "determined by the most worthless votes given for the most worthless candidates." meaning that votes for

4814-574: The graduate franchise (and other anomalies) and to have " one person one vote ". The Senate was a last-minute addition to the Parliament, after the original plans for a single Senate covering both the Stormont and Dublin Parliaments were overtaken by events. Twenty-four senators were elected by the House of Commons using the single transferable vote. The elections were carried out after each general election, with 12 members elected for two parliaments each time. The other two seats were held ex officio by

4897-481: The individual constituencies supermajorities will lead to the vote fracturing. It has been suggested that the distortions in geographical representation provide incentives for parties to ignore the interests of areas in which they are too weak to stand much chance of gaining representation, leading to governments that do not govern in the national interest. Further, during election campaigns the campaigning activity of parties tends to focus on marginal seats where there

4980-568: The largest party in Hungary since 2010 by changing the electoral system to mostly use FPP instead of the previous mixed system using mostly the two-round system . Since 2010, Fidesz has implemented other anti-democratic reforms that now mean the European Parliament no longer qualifies Hungary as a full democracy. Electoral reform campaigners have argued that the use of FPP in South Africa was

5063-514: The late 18th century, and its constitution provides for an electoral college to elect its president. Despite original intentions to the contrary, by the mid-19th century this college had transformed into a de facto use of FPP for each state's presidential election. This further morphed through the introduction of the party primary , which made American elections into a two-round system in practice. Non-plurality voting systems have been devised since at least 1299, when Ramon Llull came up with both

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5146-526: The latter, smaller parties act as 'kingmakers' in coalitions as they have greater bargaining power and therefore, arguably, their influence on policy is disproportional to their parliamentary size- this is largely avoided in FPP systems where majorities are generally achieved. FPP often produces governments which have legislative voting majorities, thus providing such governments the legislative power necessary to implement their electoral manifesto commitments during their term in office. This may be beneficial for

5229-399: The leader of the largest party in the House of Commons. The House of Commons had 52 members, of which 48 were for territorial seats, and four were for graduates of Queen's University, Belfast (until 1969, when the four university seats were replaced by an additional four territorial seats, alongside the abolition of plural voting ). The Government of Ireland Act prescribed that elections to

5312-501: The leading party receive a majority of the votes. The position is sometimes summarized, in an extreme form, as "all votes for anyone other than the runner-up are votes for the winner." This is because votes for these other candidates deny potential support from the second-placed candidate, who might otherwise have won. Following the extremely close 2000 U.S. presidential election , some supporters of Democratic candidate Al Gore believed one reason he lost to Republican George W. Bush

5395-403: The least supported candidates may change the outcome of the election between the most supported candidates. In this case however, this is a feature of the alternative vote, since those votes would have otherwise been wasted (and in some sense this makes every vote count, as opposed to FPP), and this effect is only possible when no candidate receives an outright majority of first preference votes. it

5478-428: The method, many arguing that a fundamental requirement of an election system is to accurately represent the views of voters. FPP often creates "false majorities" by over-representing larger parties (giving a majority of the parliamentary/legislative seats to a party that did not receive a majority of the votes) while under-representing smaller ones. In Canada, majority governments have been formed due to one party winning

5561-411: The north of England. This pattern hides the large number of votes for the non-dominant party. Parties can find themselves without elected politicians in significant parts of the country, heightening feelings of regionalism. Party supporters (who may nevertheless be a significant minority) in those sections of the country are unrepresented. In the 2019 Canadian federal election Conservatives won 98% of

5644-411: The number of seats won by one party by redrawing the map such that one party has a small number of districts in which it has an overwhelming majority of votes (whether due to policy, demographics which tend to favor one party, or other reasons), and many districts where it is at a smaller disadvantage. The British Electoral Reform Society (ERS) says that regional parties benefit from this system. "With

5727-424: The number required for victory. For example, in the UK general election of 2005 , 52% of votes were cast for losing candidates and 18% were excess votes—a total of 70% "wasted" votes. On this basis a large majority of votes may play no part in determining the outcome. This winner-takes-all system may be one of the reasons why "voter participation tends to be lower in countries with FPP than elsewhere." The effect of

5810-629: The other hand received one seat per 34,000 votes. The winner-takes-all nature of FPP leads to distorted patterns of representation, since it exaggerates the correlation between party support and geography. For example, in the UK the Conservative Party represents most of the rural seats in England, and most of the south of England, while the Labour Party represents most of the English cities and most of

5893-585: The party colors). Because voters have to predict who the top two candidates will be, results can be significantly distorted: Proponents of other voting methods in single-member districts argue that these would reduce the need for tactical voting and reduce the spoiler effect . Examples include preferential voting systems, such as instant runoff voting , as well as the two-round system of runoffs and less tested methods such as approval voting and Condorcet methods . Wasted votes are seen as those cast for losing candidates, and for winning candidates in excess of

5976-528: The period 1921–1932. The Commons met in the college's Gamble Library and the Senate in the chapel. In 1932, Parliament moved to the new purpose-built Parliament Buildings , designed by Sir Arnold Thornely , at Stormont , on the eastern outskirts of the city. "Stormont" came to be a synecdoche referring both to the Parliament itself and to the Northern Ireland government. Stormont was given power to legislate over almost all aspects of Northern Ireland life, with only

6059-583: The population of serving age were either in essential jobs or had already joined up voluntarily, making the potential yield of conscription low. 1965 saw a significant change, in that the Nationalists accepted office as the Official Opposition . This was intended as a reward for the attempts made by Terence O'Neill to end discrimination against Catholics and normalise relations with the Republic. However,

6142-540: The same time. On the other hand, the Constitution Society published a report in April 2019 stating that, "[in certain circumstances] FPP can ... abet extreme politics , since should a radical faction gain control of one of the major political parties, FPP works to preserve that party's position. ...This is because the psychological effect of the plurality system disincentivises a major party's supporters from voting for

6225-639: The seats in Alberta and Saskatchewan with only 68% of the vote. The lack of non-Conservative representation gives the appearance of greater Conservative support than actually exists. Similarly, in Canada's 2021 elections, the Conservative Party won 88% of the seats in Alberta with only 55% of the vote, and won 100% of the seats in Saskatchewan with only 59% of the vote. First-past-the-post within geographical areas tends to deliver (particularly to larger parties)

6308-455: The second election on the same basis. The loss of eight Unionist seats in that election caused great acrimony, and in 1929, the system was changed to first-past-the-post for all territorial constituencies, though STV was retained for the university seats. In the 1925 election, however, Republicans also lost four seats and a substantial proportion of votes. Nationalists gained the same number of seats that Republicans had lost, but had only gained

6391-456: The victor. Parliament of Northern Ireland The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland , created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 , which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended because of its inability to restore order during the Troubles , resulting in the introduction of direct rule . It was abolished under

6474-571: Was called when the Irish government declared itself a republic . During the Second World War , the Stormont government called on Westminster to introduce conscription several times, as this was already the case in Great Britain. The British government consistently refused, remembering how a similar attempt in 1918 had backfired dramatically, as nationalist opposition made it unworkable. Much of

6557-682: Was introduced in March 1972, just six weeks after Bloody Sunday , when the Unionist government refused to hand over responsibility for law and order to Westminster . In its 50-year history, only one piece of legislation was passed that was introduced by a Nationalist member, the Wild Birds Protection Act. In October 1971, as the Troubles worsened, Gerard Newe had been appointed as a junior minister at Stormont, in an attempt to improve community relations. Fifty years after it came into existence, Newe

6640-490: Was nominally prohibited by section 16 of the Schedule to the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act 1922 from making any law which directly or indirectly discriminated against a religion, although this provision had little effect. The 1921 general election was explicitly fought on the issue of partition , being in effect a referendum on approval of the concept of a Northern Ireland administration. Thereafter, general election timing

6723-465: Was suffering the effects of its split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty . Éamon de Valera 's Sinn Féin fought as Republicans but won only two seats. The border was never changed. A minor row erupted in 1925 when the elections to the Senate took place. Eleven Unionists and one Labour Senator were elected, despite there being a block of three composed of two non-abstaining Nationalists and a dissident Unionist. The latter three had mailed their votes, but due to

6806-469: Was the first Catholic to serve in a Northern Ireland government, but because he was neither an MP nor a Senator, his appointment could last only six months. The influence of the Orange Order in the governance of Northern Ireland was far-reaching. All of the six prime ministers of Northern Ireland were members of the Order, as were all but three cabinet ministers until 1969. Three of the ministers later left

6889-590: Was up to the Prime Minister. Elections almost always took place at a time when the issue of partition had been raised in a new crisis. This generally guaranteed the loyalty of Protestant voters to the Unionist Party . Independent Unionist candidates and the Northern Ireland Labour Party were usually accused of being splitters or dupes of the Nationalists . The 1925 general election was called to tie in with

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