NI Constituency sizes

[Gerry Lynch]

My browser is crashing and munching posts with abandon at the moment, so
sorry for cutting cross threads.

Crispin asked about NI Constituency sizes. I don't have the exact
figures to hand, but the smallest was East Antrim with ~59,000 voters
and the largest North Antrim with ~72,500.

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[Jim Riley]

In article <362E34...@my.sig> Gerry Lynch wrote:

>Crispin asked about NI Constituency sizes. I don't have the exact
>figures to hand, but the smallest was East Antrim with ~59,000 voters
>and the largest North Antrim with ~72,500.

The first column is at the time of Forum elections in June 1996
(courtesy of Nicholas Whyte). The second column is for the June 1998
Assembly elections (courtesy of Tobias Zywietz)

57,989 59,313 Antrim East
71,799 73,247 Antrim North
68,898 69,426 Antrim South
62,161 60,562 Belfast East
63,890 61,209 Belfast South
65,411 62,541 Belfast North
61,344 60,669 Belfast West
62,810 62,942 Down North
69,035 71,000 Down South
63,716 65,383 Fermanagh & South Tyrone
66,598 68,888 Foyle
70,045 71,661 Lagan Valley
58,471 59,370 Londonderry East
69,887 71,553 Newry & Armagh
69,093 70,868 Strangford
57,348 59,081 Tyrone West
57,683 59,991 Ulster Mid
69,928 70,852 Upper Bann

Adjusting the number of seats per constituency may have had no net
effect. Let's say that a 7th seat were added to the 4 largest
constituencies at the expense of the 6th seat in the 4 smallest
constituencies.

SDLP might gain in Newry&Armagh and South Down, while losing seats in
East Antrim and West Tyrone. Sinn Fein might gain the seat in North
Antrim and lose one in Mid Ulster. UUP might gain the seat in Lagan
Valley and lost the seat in Londonderry East.

If the seats were to be apportioned on the basis of electorate size,
it would probably be more fair to have an assembly of around 100 or
115 members, so that the average number of members/constituency were
5.5 or 6.5 and you could recognize an ideal range of 6.1 to 4.9 as 6 to
5, rather than a range of 6.6 to 5.4 being recognized as 7 to 5.

--
Jim Riley