The face of the Assembly has changed since this election. In September 1998, the 3 independent Unionist candidates united to form the United Unionist Assembly Party. In January 1999, 4 of the 5 United Kingdom Unionist Party members splintered off to form the Northern Ireland Unionist Party.

Overall Summary of Results
(Those parties which polled 1% or more.)

Party

Number of Seats

First Preference Votes

Share of Vote

Change Since 1997 General Election

3

11,642

1.44%

Makeup of the Assembly

Constituency-by-Constituency Results

| Antrim East | Antrim North | Antrim South | Belfast East | Belfast North |
| Belfast South | Belfast West | Down North | Down South |
| Fermanagh and South Tyrone | Foyle | Lagan Valley | Londonderry East |
| Mid Ulster | Newry and Armagh | Strangford | Tyrone West | Upper Bann |

*The Single Transferrable Vote System

The STV system allows people to support more than one candidate, since it is unlikely that people will support just one person. In the polling booth they receive a list of candidates and place a '1' beside their first preference. They can then place a '2' beside their second and so on for as many as they want. All the voting slips are then gathered together for the count. An STV count is one of the most complicated counts in the world, often taking 24 hours or more. This is an attempt to explain what goes on during the count.

The first step is to total up all votes cast. This is easy and takes a very short time. Using a special formula, this figure is used to derive a 'quota' figure. This figure is the number of votes that a candidate needs in order to be elected. In this election, there are 6 seats to fill, but STV will work for any number of seats.

In the next step, all the votes are separated out into first preferences. In other words, they are placed into piles for each candidate by examining where the '1' on each ballot paper has been placed. These individual piles are then counted separately. This is known as the 'first count'. Once the count is over, any candidate that has exceeded the quota is deemed elected. The returning officer will then announce these elected candidates and then return to the count.

The next stage is to take the votes for each elected member and then split them up by second preference candidate. These are then counted separately and the total scaled down to the difference between the actual votes for the elected members and the quota. A set of votes equal to the quota is dropped at each step for each elected candidate. These votes are then distributed among the other candidates according to their second preferences. At this stage the quota is re-calculated. The process will then repeat itself, with members being elected at each stage until all the seats are filled. Each time a vote is used, the next preference candidate marked on each ballot paper is examined.

It is also possible that, in a particular count, nobody has enough votes to be elected. If this happens, the candidate with the smallest vote is dropped and their next preference votes redistributed. Sometimes several candidates have to be dropped before a candidate can be elected. Since votes are scaled at each stage, it is worth noting that at each stage some votes will be worth '1' with others worth less than 1.

While complicated, STV works well and has many advantages. It also lends itself particularly well to electoral strategy, with many seats being allocated on unexpected transfers of votes.