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Comment by jmkni | Hacker News Reader

That's incorrect.

We just had an election, 35/90 assembly seats went to Nationalist (NI should not exist) candidates, the rest went either to Unionist (NI should remain part of the UK) or 'Other' (there are more important things to worry about) candidates.

Unionism is still the biggest designation in Stormont.

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Including Alliance in these stats is misleading. We’ve no idea how those voters would vote in a border poll and therefore in any claims about that they should be discounted (as, if we had a border poll, they would have to choose). When you do that the vote was almost 50/50 in terms of unity/union parties.

The aligned parties are split roughly 50/50 (37 unionist seats, 35 nationalist seats). Both lost ground to unaligned parties, which now control the remaining 18 seats.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-61363246 has a good chart of voting trends.

I think you can call 35/90 "roughly half" without it being incorrect. That's 39% of the assembly, depending on the voting lines and non-voter opinion it could easily be ~50% of the population.

Well only 60% of the population actually voted, so arguably ~50% of those who took the time to vote.

It's based on nothing concrete, but I'd assume those that don't believe Northern Ireland should exist would be more likely to not vote in the Northern Irish elections.

Wouldn't they be more likely to vote for the pro-United Ireland party?

If they don't vote, then they are content with how things are, no?

They'd be more likely to vote for a Nationalist party yes, but they'd also be more likely not to vote as that would acknowledge the legitimacy of British rule over Northern Ireland.

That, or they are avoiding debt collectors by not being on the electoral register.

I think the key thing to note here is that "Half the population" != "Half of voters"

Even then, assembly seats are assigned based on constituency - which can be politically marred by things like Gerrymandering.

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Based on one recent poll - reunification appears to get 46% favor in those who are decided: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/majority-of-people-...

> Unionism is still the biggest designation in Stormont.

By two seats, so by a 2.2% lead. 37 Unionist, 35 Nationalist, and 17 Alliance, and 1 Other.

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