Voting at the Northern Ireland Assembly Election, 2003. Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher Local Government Chronicle Elections Centre University of Plymouth This report for the Electoral Commission considers the second election to the Northern Ireland Assembly (NIA) held in November 2003. The election uses the 18 Westminster Parliamentary constituency areas for voting purposes but six Assembly members are elected for each of these constituencies using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) method of voting. Election results are those supplied by the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland. Those interested in the details of transfers at both the 1998 and 2003 should consult the relevant sheets published by the Chief Electoral Officer. The report is divided into two sections. The first section examines the elections in terms of support for parties and candidates and the distribution of seats, and is structured as follows: • Distribution of votes and seats across Northern Ireland • Proportionality and the electoral outcome • Comparison of vote and seat shares, 1998-2003 • Parties and candidates • Women candidates • Incumbents seeking re-election • Candidates and the electoral system • Party competition • Party quotas and the allocation of seats • The personal vote A second section focuses upon electoral registration, methods of voting and voter turnout and is structured as follows: The impact of new electoral registration procedures Change in electorates, 1998-2003 Methods for calculating electoral turnout Turnout in 2003 Changes in turnout, 1998-2003 Constituency characteristics and election turnout Postal voting and turnout Rejected postal votes and turnout In-person voting Rejected in-person votes and turnout Reasons for rejecting votes Comparing rejected votes 1998-2003 Some Tables are included in the body of the report but others are attached in the Appendix and are labelled with the prefix A. Party abbreviations are mainly used in the text but a full list may be found in the Appendix, Table A15. Section 1: Support for candidates and parties and the distribution of seats Distribution of votes and seats across Northern Ireland Slightly fewer than 0.7 million valid first preference votes were cast in the Northern Ireland Assembly (NIA) election of 2003 (Table 1; but see also Table A1 for the constituency results and Tables A2-A3 for summary data for each party in each constituency). This is approximately 120,000 fewer votes than were recorded at the first NIA election in 1998. The most popular choice was the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose candidates received more than one in four first preference votes. The second largest party in vote share was Sinn Fein (SF) with 23.5% of the vote. It finished fifteen thousand votes behind the DUP. Overall, fewer than six thousand votes separated SF and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), which received 22.7% of first preferences. The fourth largest party was the Social and Democratic Labour Party (SDLP), which polled 17% of first preference votes. The four main parties (DUP, UUP, SDLP and SF) were separated by a mere sixty thousand votes, with less than a nine percentage point gap separating the DUP and SDLP. Combined, these four parties captured 88.9% of the vote, compared with the 79% share that they obtained in 1998. The difference between the two main unionist parties, at just over twenty one thousand votes, was half that separating SF and SDLP. Votes for all unionist parties combined comprise 50.9% of the total (49.9% in 1998) while the combined share for SF and SDLP is 40.5% (39.6% in 1998). Table 1: Result of the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections, 2003 1st pref votes Share % Cands (N=) Seats Seat % A 25,372 3.7 21 6 5.6 Con 1,604 0.2 6 - 0 DUP 177,944 25.7 40 30 27.8 Green 2,688 0.4 6 - 0 Ind 19,328 2.8 22 1 0.9 NIUP 1,350 0.2 2 - 0 NIWC 5,785 0.8 7 - 0 PUP 8,032 1.2 11 1 0.9 SDLP 117,547 17.0 36 18 16.7 SEA 2,394 0.3 2 - 0 SF 162,758 23.5 38 24 22.2 SP 343 0.0 2 - 0 UKUP 5,700 0.8 6 1 0.9 UTW 16 0.0 1 - 0 UUC 2,705 0.4 2 - 0 UUP 156,931 22.7 43 27 25.0 VFY 124 0.0 3 - 0 WP 1,407 0.2 8 - 0 Total 692,028 256 108 2 The largest number of Assembly seats was won by DUP, whose 30 seats comprise 27.8% of the total (Table 2 and Table A4). The second largest party in the new Assembly is UUP, which won three fewer seats than the DUP. Although SF received a larger percentage of first preferences than did UUP, the party won three fewer seats, and six fewer than DUP. The fourth largest party, in terms of both votes and seats is SDLP, which now has 18 Assembly members. Table 2: Seats by party at the Northern Ireland Assembly Election, 1998-2003 2003 1998 change seats seats seats A 6 6 - DUP 30 20 +10 Ind 1 - +1 NIWC - 2 -2 PUP 1 2 -1 SDLP 18 24 -6 SF 24 18 +6 UKUP 1 5 -4 UUP 27 28 -1 Others - 3 -3 The most successful party, measured by the ratio of successful to unsuccessful candidates, was DUP. Three-quarters (0.75) of its candidates were elected compared to 0.6 for both UUP and SF and 0.5 for SDLP. The four main parties returned 99 of the Assembly’s 108 members, 91.7% of the membership. Among the smaller parties, the Alliance party performed best. It won six seats, slightly less than one in three fought by the party. Proportionality and the electoral outcome The electoral system, the Single Transferable Vote (STV), helped to ensure that there was a strong correlation between vote and seat shares. The largest party in vote share, DUP, also won the largest share of seats. This had not happened in 1998. Then, SDLP won the most first preference votes with UUP in second place, but these positions were reversed when seats were allocated. The combined vote share of minor parties, which did not win a seat and excluding Independents, was just 2.7%. One useful method for assessing the operation of the electoral system is to measure the ratio between votes and seats for each party. When that ratio equals one, a party’s seat and vote shares are identical; when the ratio is above one then the party is relatively advantaged by the system, and when it falls below that figure it is disadvantaged. The seats to votes ratios for the four main parties were very close in 2003. Both the DUP and UUP had ratios of 1.1, but each of these parties benefited from transfers from among other unionist candidates. Although both SF and SDLP had seats/votes ratios 3 below one (0.94 and 0.98 respectively) the difference from equality was negligible. The Alliance party was the biggest beneficiary of the electoral system. Although it won 3.7% of first preference votes the party won six seats, 5.6% of the total. This is a seats to votes ratio of 1.5. A second useful measure for assessing the impact of the electoral system upon the Assembly’s composition is to use an index of proportionality. The most commonly used measure of proportionality is referred to as the Loosemore-Hanby index. The index is calculated as follows: for any election the absolute values of the differences between vote and seat shares for each competing party are summed, with that total then divided by two. Thus, if every party’s seat share is an exact reflection of its vote share then the value of the index would be zero; the outcome would be proportional. As a general rule of thumb an election result that has a Loosemore-Hanby index of above 10 is regarded as having an outcome that is disproportional. In the case of the 2003 Assembly result the calculated index is 6.4. This compares with an index score of 6.1 for the 1998 election outcome. For comparative purposes, the Loosemore-Hanby index scores for the last two UK general elections were 21.1 and 21.9 respectively. Comparison of vote and seat shares, 1998-2003 A comparison of vote shares with 1998 shows that the two parties that advanced most were DUP and SF. The vote of the former rose by 7.6 percentage points whilst there was a 5.9 point rise for SF. Although the overall result for UUP was considered by some to be disappointing the party’s vote share rose, albeit by a modest 1.4 percentage points. The biggest loss of vote share was that for the SDLP. Its vote, measured as a share of first preferences, declined by five percentage points. There was a drop in support also for UKUP, from 4.5% in 1998 to just 0.8% in 2003, although the party fielded half the number of candidates than it had done so in 1998. Another party in decline was Alliance whose vote fell by 2.8 percentage points. That said, Alliance did succeed in retaining all of its seats – an achievement given the size of its vote. Undoubtedly, this outcome followed the receipt of transfer votes from those whose first preference was for another party. The DUP increased its share of seats by half (from 20 to 30) whilst SF’s share increased by a third (from 18 to 24).