THE electoral system being used for today's election is unfamiliar, but is much simpler than many people believe.
The elections are being held to elect 110 delegates to a Northern Ireland Forum.
Each of the 18 Westminster constituencies will elect five delegates, making 90 in all. In addition, the 10 parties receiving the highest number of votes throughout Northern Ireland will each be entitled to, two extra delegates. This brings the total number of forum delegates up to 110.
The constituency elections:
People do not vote for individual candidates. Instead, the ballot paper lists the parties running in a particular constituency, and people will put an X opposite the party they support. They vote for only one party they do not list parties in order of preference.
For the count, a quota is calculated in the same way as in the Republic. The total valid poll in each constituency is divided by the number of seats plus one (six in all cases in this election, since each constituency is a five seater) and one vote is added to the result.
Parties will be entitled to one delegate for each quota they achieve on the count. It is likely that two or three parties will achieve quotas in most constituencies, and in some cases it is possible that parties will receive two or three quotas.
The d'Hondt formula:
After the quota seats have been allocated, the remaining seats will be filled by applying a formula named after the man who devised it, a Belgian lawyer named Victor d'Hondt (1841-1901).
This does not entail any transfer of votes from one party to another. Instead, each party's vote is divided by the number of seats it has already received in the constituency, plus one. A party which has won one seat will have its vote divided by two (one seat, plus one); a party which has won two seats will have its vote divided by three (two seats, plus one); and so on. When this calculation has been done, the party with the highest figure will be entitled to a seat.
This process continues until all seats in the constituency have been filled.
The delegates to fill the seats won by the parties will be chosen from the list of candidates put forward by the parties in the particular constituency. These names are listed in order of preference: if a party wins two seats, the two delegates will automatically be the first two names on the party list.
The regional lists:
Finally, the votes received by each party in all 18 constituencies will be tolled up. The 10 parties receiving the highest totals will each be entitled to two extra delegates to be chosen from the regional lists which they have put forward. Most parties have listed candidates on their regional lists who are also on a constituency list; anyone elected on a constituency list will be disregarded for the purposes of the regional list, and the first two names on a party's regional list of people not already elected on a constituency list will be deemed elected as delegates.
The idea behind this "top up" list of 20 candidates is to give small parties, which might not win any seats in the constituencies, a chance to be represented in the forum.