Northern Ireland Office

New laws come into force today that will change the way vacancies are filled in the Assembly. MLAs will no longer have to rely on a list of substitutes submitted at the time of their nomination as candidates. Under the new system the Nominating Officer of the party to which the MLA belonged to when they were elected will nominate a replacement to fill the seat if they vacate it during term. 

A public consultation was carried out last summer on possible improvements to the administration of elections to the Assembly, and included proposals relating to filling vacancies.

Paul Goggins said: “ There was general agreement that the previous system for filling vacancies required reform and the new system provided for in the Order was widely supported during the public consultation. I am pleased therefore that Parliament has approved this change and that the system is now fully in force."

Notes to Editors

This change is contained in the Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) (Amendment) Order 2009 which was debated in the House of Commons Delegated Legislation Committee on 14 January 2009 and in the House of Lords on 4 February.

The main purpose of this Order was to update the framework for administering elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly to take account of recent changes that have been made to the legislation governing Parliamentary elections by the Electoral Administration Act 2006 and the Representation of the People Regulations 2008.

Bringing forward this Order also provided an opportunity to make other improvements to the framework governing the administration of Assembly elections in Northern Ireland.

The Order therefore also includes a number of other changes that received significant support following the public consultation on Improving the Administration of Elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. The most significant of these is the introduction of a new system for replacing MLAs who vacate their seats during term. The Order makes provision for the nominating officer of the party that the vacating  member belonged to at the time of his or her election to nominate a replacement for the vacant seat at the time the vacancy arises. Independent MLAs may still, if they are elected, submit lists of substitutes who may be approached to fill their seat should it become vacant.

Other minor procedural changes that have been brought forward include:

• The automatic suspension of the count at a set time unless there is unanimous agreement to continue. This is in line with the system that is already in place for Local Government elections in Northern Ireland;
• an extension of the period for the nomination of candidates;
• a change to the timescales for the publication of lists of persons nominated;
• clarification that voting more than once in Assembly elections is a criminal offence;
• streamlining the procedure for providing party emblems on ballot papers.

The public consultation on Improving the Administration of Elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly and the government response