43-585: Elections for local government were held in Northern Ireland in May 1977. The elections saw good performances by the four largest parties: the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Alliance Party of Northern Ireland and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), while smaller parties failed to make a breakthrough. The DUP took control of their first council, Ballymena , while
86-495: A DEA has one councillor for each ward it has. Likewise, parliamentary constituencies (and thus, Assembly constituencies) are always made up of combinations of electoral wards. Electoral wards are also used in allocating funding, such as for urban regeneration programmes under the Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy. [REDACTED] This table shows number of councillors by party, election, and district, based on
129-447: A candidate who does not need them. If seats remain open after the first count, any surplus votes are transferred. This may generate the necessary winners. As well, least popular candidates may be eliminated as way to generate winners. The specific method of transferring votes varies in different systems (see § Vote transfers and quota ). Transfer of any existing surplus votes is done before eliminations of candidates. This prevents
172-434: A district. The key to STV's approximation of proportionality is that each voter effectively only casts a single vote in a district contest electing multiple winners, while the ranked ballots (and sufficiently large districts) allow the results to achieve a high degree of proportionality with respect to partisan affiliation within the district, as well as representation by gender and other descriptive characteristics. The use of
215-536: A four-year term of office under the single transferable vote (STV) system. Elections were last held on 18 May 2023 . To qualify for election, a councillor candidate must be: In addition, they must either: The results of the three elections held since the introduction of the 11 new districts in 2014-15 are as follows. The districts are combined for various purposes. In the Eurostat Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS), Northern Ireland
258-522: A large number of effective votes – 19 votes were used to elect the successful candidates. (Only the votes for Oranges at the end were not used to select a food. The Orange voters have satisfaction of seeing their second choice – Pears – selected, even if their votes were not used to select any food.) As well, there was general satisfaction with the choices selected. Nineteen voters saw either their first or second choice elected, although four of them did not actually have their vote used to achieve
301-481: A more localised indicator of voting preferences than the results in the larger parliamentary constituencies. Under STV , each DEA is a multi-member district, electing 5, 6 or 7 councillors, with all councillors representing the entire DEA. Wards do not have elected representation in their own right, and no election results at ward level are officially recorded or published, besides turnout levels at individual polling stations. The below map shows each DEA numbered, with
344-453: A party from losing a candidate in the early stage who might be elected later through transfers. When surplus votes are transferred under some systems, some or all of the votes held by the winner are apportioned fractionally to the next marked preference on the ballot. In others, the transfers to the next available marked preference is done using whole votes. When seats still remain to be filled and there are no surplus votes to transfer (none of
387-448: A quota means that, for the most part, each successful candidate is elected with the same number of votes. This equality produces fairness in the particular sense that a party taking twice as many votes as another party will generally take twice the number of seats compared to that other party. Under STV, winners are elected in a multi-member constituency (district) or at-large, also in a multiple-winner contest. Every sizeable group within
430-634: A regional-level authority. From 1921 to 1973, Northern Ireland was divided into six administrative counties (subdivided into urban and rural districts ) and two county boroughs . The counties and county boroughs continue to exist for the purposes of lieutenancy and shrievalty . This system, with the abolition of rural districts, remains the model for local government in the Republic of Ireland . (See also List of rural and urban districts in Northern Ireland for more details) Councillors are elected for
473-536: A single Health and Social Care Board in April 2009. The former health and social services boards were as follows: In June 2002, the Northern Ireland Executive established a Review of Public Administration to review the arrangements for the accountability, development, administration and delivery of public services. Among its recommendations were a reduction in the number of districts. In 2005 Peter Hain ,
SECTION 10
#1733093158131516-437: A transfer if the first-preference food is chosen with a surplus of votes. The 23 guests at the party mark their ballots: some mark first, second and third preferences; some mark only two preferences. When the ballots are counted, it is found that the ballots are marked in seven distinct combinations, as shown in the table below: The table is read as columns: the left-most column shows that there were three ballots with Orange as
559-564: A voter's subsequent preferences if necessary. Under STV, no one party or voting bloc can take all the seats in a district unless the number of seats in the district is very small or almost all the votes cast are cast for one party's candidates (which is seldom the case). This makes it different from other commonly used candidate-based systems. In winner-take-all or plurality systems – such as first-past-the-post (FPTP), instant-runoff voting (IRV), and block voting – one party or voting bloc can take all seats in
602-425: Is Hamburgers, so the three votes are transferred to Hamburgers. Hamburgers is elected with 7 votes in total. Hamburgers now has a surplus vote, but this does not matter since the election is over. There are no more foods needing to be chosen – three have been chosen. Result: The winners are Pears, Cake, and Hamburgers. Orange ends up being neither elected nor eliminated. STV in this case produced
645-452: Is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote in the form of a ranked ballot . Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternative preferences if their preferred candidate is eliminated or elected with surplus votes, so that their vote is used to elect someone they prefer over others in the running. STV aims to approach proportional representation based on votes cast in
688-489: Is calculated by a specified method (STV generally uses the Hare or Droop quota ), and candidates who accumulate that many votes are declared elected. In many STV systems, the quota is also used to determine surplus votes, the number of votes received by successful candidates over and above the quota. Surplus votes are transferred to candidates ranked lower in the voters' preferences, if possible, so they are not wasted by remaining with
731-721: Is divided into five parts at level 3 There were five education and library boards (ELBs) in Northern Ireland. As part of the Review of Public Administration process, the library functions of the ELBs were taken over by a new body, the Northern Ireland Library Authority (branded Libraries NI ) in April 2009. The education and skills functions were centralised into a single Education Authority for Northern Ireland in April 2015. The boards were as follows: There were four health and social services boards which were replaced by
774-484: Is eliminated. In accordance with the next preference marked on the vote cast by the voter who voted Strawberry as first preference, that vote is transferred to Oranges. In accordance with the next preference marked on the two votes cast by the Pear–Strawberry–Cake voters (which had been transferred to Strawberry in step 2), the two votes are transferred to Cake. (The Cake preference had been "piggy-backed" along with
817-469: Is handled centrally by the Land and Property Services agency of the Northern Ireland Executive . The 11 districts first had their boundaries determined in 2012. Elections were held to the new councils in 2014, and they assumed the powers of the previous councils in 2015. Basic geographical statistics are shown below. Previously (between 1972 and 2015) the country was divided into 26 smaller districts . Each of
860-489: The 1993 election was the last time local government boundaries had been redrawn - between 1993 and 2011, there were 102 DEAs across the old 26 councils, with each council having between 3 and 9 DEAs each. By definition, DEAs nest exactly within the 11 Local Government Districts. However, they do not nest within the parliamentary constituencies - for example, the DEAs of Newry , Slieve Gullion and Cusher all fall entirely within
903-566: The Newry and Armagh constituency , but the Armagh DEA does not - one of its wards, Blackwatertown , falls within the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency instead. This means there is no exact comparison of local government election results with Assembly/Westminster results. However, comparisons are possible between combinations of 2012 DEAs, and combinations of DEAs/LGDs from before 2014. For example,
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#1733093158131946-512: The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland , announced proposals to reduce the number of councils to seven. The names and boundaries of the seven districts were announced in March 2007. In March 2008 the restored Northern Executive agreed to create eleven new councils instead of the original seven. The first elections were due to take place in May 2011. However, by May 2010 disagreements among parties in
989-458: The 11 councils is divided into 7 District Electoral Areas (DEAs), with the exception of Belfast, which has 10 DEAs. Each DEA, in turn, is made up of 5, 6 or 7 wards, with the number of councillors for each DEA equal to the number of wards. There are 80 DEAs in Northern Ireland in total, and the current DEA boundaries were finalised in 2012 , and first used in the 2014 election , with the new councils coming into operation in May 2015. Prior to this,
1032-429: The 2012 Local Government Districts in bold. The inset map shows DEAs in the districts of Antrim and Newtownabbey, Ards and North Down, Belfast, and Lisburn and Castlereagh. [REDACTED] Electoral wards are the basic unit of Northern Ireland's political geography. Since at least 1973, every local government boundary commission has involved the drawing of ward boundaries, then the grouping of wards into DEAs, such that
1075-441: The 23 guests. STV is chosen to make the decision, with the whole-vote method used to transfer surplus votes. The hope is that each guest will be served at least one food that they are happy with. To select the three foods, each guest is given one vote – they each mark their first preference and are also allowed to cast two back-up preferences to be used only if their first-preference food cannot be selected or to direct
1118-638: The UUP retained control of Banbridge . The SDLP lost control of Magherafelt , their only council. No election was held, as 6 candidates ran for the 6 seats. As 4 candidates ran for the 4 seats, no election was held and all candidates were declared elected. Local government in Northern Ireland Lowercase "d" per here . Local government in Northern Ireland is divided among 11 single-tier districts known as 'Local Government Districts' (abbreviated LGDs) and formerly known as district council areas (DCAs). Councils in Northern Ireland do not carry out
1161-404: The current set of 11 councils, are shown on the below map. They had 583 wards in total - meaning 583 councillors, representing 102 District Electoral Areas. [REDACTED] The current pattern of 11 local government districts was established on 1 April 2015, as a result of the reform process that started in 2005. The previous pattern of local government in Northern Ireland, with 26 councils,
1204-451: The district where it is used, so that each vote is worth about the same as another. STV is a family of proportional multi-winner electoral systems . They can be thought of as a variation on the largest remainders method that uses solid coalitions rather than party lists . Surplus votes belonging to winning candidates (those in excess of an electoral quota ) may be thought of as remainder votes – they are transferred to
1247-400: The district wins at least one seat: the more seats the district has, the smaller the size of the group needed to elect a member. In this way, STV provides approximately proportional representation overall, ensuring that substantial minority factions have some representation. There are several STV variants. Two common distinguishing characteristics are whether or not ticket voting is allowed and
1290-920: The executive over district boundaries were expected to delay the reforms until 2015. In June 2010 the proposed reforms were abandoned following the failure of the Northern Ireland Executive to reach agreement. However, on 12 March 2012, the Northern Ireland Executive published its programme for government, which included a commitment to reduce the number of councils in Northern Ireland to 11. Single transferable vote 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 The single transferable vote ( STV ) or proportional-ranked choice voting ( P-RCV ),
1333-416: The fewest votes and is eliminated. According to their only voter's next preference, this vote is transferred to Cake. No option has reached the quota, and there are still two to elect with five in the race, so elimination of options will continue next round. Step 4: Of the remaining options, Oranges, Strawberry and Chicken now are tied for the fewest votes. Strawberry had the fewest first preference votes so
1977 Northern Ireland local elections - Misplaced Pages Continue
1376-598: The first choice and Pear as second, while the right-most column shows there were three ballots with Chicken as first choice, Chocolate as second, and Hamburger as third. The election step-by-step: ELECTED (2 surplus vote) ELECTED (0 surplus votes) ELECTED (1 surplus vote) Setting the quota: The Droop quota formula is used to produce the quota (the number of votes required to be automatically declared elected) = floor(valid votes / (seats to fill + 1)) + 1 = floor(23 / (3 + 1)) + 1 = floor(5.75) + 1 = 5 + 1 = 6 Step 1: First-preference votes are counted. Pears reaches
1419-465: The last parcel of votes received by winners in accordance with the Gregory method. Systems that use the Gregory method for surplus vote transfers are strictly non-random. In a single transferable vote (STV) system, the voter ranks candidates in order of preference on their ballot. A vote is initially allocated to the voter's first preference. A quota (the minimum number of votes that guarantees election)
1462-591: The manner in which surplus votes are transferred. In Australia, lower house elections do not allow ticket voting; some but not all state upper house systems do allow ticket voting. In Ireland and Malta, surplus votes are transferred as whole votes (there may be some randomness) and neither allows ticket voting. In Hare–Clark , used in Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory , there is no ticket voting and surplus votes are fractionally transferred based on
1505-408: The quota with 8 votes and is therefore elected on the first count, with 2 surplus votes. Step 2: All of the voters who gave first preference to Pears preferred Strawberry next, so the surplus votes are awarded to Strawberry. No other option has reached the quota, and there are still two to elect with six options in the race, so elimination of lower-scoring options starts. Step 3: Chocolate has
1548-411: The quota) or until there are only as many remaining candidates as there are unfilled seats, at which point the remaining candidates are declared elected. Suppose an election is conducted to determine what three foods to serve at a party. There are seven choices: Oranges, Pears, Strawberries, Cake (of the strawberry/chocolate variety), Chocolate, Hamburgers and Chicken. Only three of these may be served to
1591-498: The remaining candidates' votes have surplus votes needing to be transferred), the least popular candidate is eliminated. The eliminated candidate's votes are transferred to the next-preferred candidate rather than being discarded; if the next-preferred choice has already been eliminated or elected, the procedure is iterated to lower-ranked candidates. Counting, eliminations, and vote transfers continue until enough candidates are declared elected (all seats are filled by candidates reaching
1634-486: The result. Four saw their third choice elected. Fifteen voters saw their first preference chosen; eight of these 15 saw their first and third choices selected. Four others saw their second preference chosen, with one of them having their second and third choice selected. Note that if Hamburger had received only one vote when Chicken was eliminated, it still would have won because the only other remaining candidate, Oranges, had fewer votes so would have been declared defeated in
1677-485: The same range of functions as those in the rest of the United Kingdom ; for example they have no responsibility for education, road-building or housing (although they do nominate members to the advisory Northern Ireland Housing Council ). Their functions include planning , waste and recycling services , leisure and community services, building control and local economic and cultural development. The collection of rates
1720-505: The three local elections that have occurred since local government reform in 2014-15. 'S.' denotes seats. '14', '19' and '23' denote the years 2014, 2019 and 2023. This table does not reflect any notional changes between the 2011 election and the 2014 election. 'Minor Nat.' includes independent nationalists and Aontú . 'Minor Un.' includes independent unionists, NI21 and UKIP . 'Minor Other' includes other independents and Labour Alternative . The previous set of 26 councils, which preceded
1763-469: The total election results in the Limavady and Benbradagh DEAs from 2014 can be compared with the results of the whole Limavady borough from 2011, as both cover the same area. Similar comparisons are as follows: Note that Erne West is the only DEA in Northern Ireland whose boundaries were completely unchanged between 1993 and 2012. The 80 DEAs are the most granular unit of elected representation, thus providing
1977 Northern Ireland local elections - Misplaced Pages Continue
1806-459: The transfer to Strawberry.) Cake reaches the quota and is elected. Cake has no surplus votes, no other option has reached the quota, and there is still one choice to select with three in the race, so the vote count proceeds, with the elimination of the least popular candidate. Step 5: Chicken has the fewest votes and is eliminated. The Chicken voters' next preference is Chocolate but Chocolate has already been eliminated. The next usable preference
1849-636: Was established in 1973 by the Local Government (Boundaries) Act (Northern Ireland) 1971 and the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 to replace the previous system established by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 . The system was based on the recommendations of the Macrory Report, of June 1970, which presupposed the continued existence of the Government of Northern Ireland to act as
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