2022 NI Assembly Election: In Summary

We are just 5 weeks out from the polls opening and the population of Northern Ireland journeying to their nearest polling station to vote for their favoured candidate.

Elections can be difficult to get your head around and understand at the best of times so here is all the information you need to know in Layman's terms.

The Structure

This assembly election will be the 7th election to take place since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which set up the current institutions.

In the election an area in which a politician is elected is called a constituency of which there are 18 in total.

Each constituency elects 5 MLAs therefore meaning there will be a total of 90 MLAs that will represent their constituency in the Assembly.

The method of voting used in Northern Ireland for an assembly election is called STV or Single Transferable Vote. This method means that when voting the electorate will number their candidates in order of preference.

The Results

As scheduled, the polls will open at 7am on Election Day, Thursday 5 May and will close at 10pm on the same day.

Counting for the results will start on the following morning, Friday 6 May at 8am and will continue until all seats are filled and all 90 MLAs have been elected.

When all 90 MLAs have been elected, there will be a largest party from both communities in which they will select a First and Deputy First Minister to jointly lead Northern Ireland for the current mandate.

The First Minister will be selected by the overall largest party and the Deputy First Minister will be selected by the largest party in the other community

Latest Polling Details

On 27 March, NI’s largest polling company, LucidTalk, published their latest opinion poll in which it asked various questions to over 3,000 people who participated.

As of the opinion poll, Sinn Fein are expected to come out of the election as the largest party with 26% of first preference votes followed by the DUP with just 19%. The Alliance Party has again been predicted to be the third largest party with 16% with the UUP and SDLP dropping to 13% and 11% respectively.

Glossary Section

Constituency - an area at which a candidate campaigns to be elected to represent e.g. Belfast North or South Antrim etc.

MLA - Member of Legislative Assembly is someone who is elected to represent their constituency in the NI Assembly

Single Transferable Vote - a method of voting in which candidates are elected in order of preference

First / Deputy First MInister - joint leaders of the NI Executive alongside being an MLA