Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1962

Interpretation N.I.

42 In this Part of these rules—

• continuing candidate means any candidate not deemed to be elected and not excluded;

• count means all the operations involved in the counting of the first preferences recorded for candidates, the transfer of the surpluses of elected candidates, and the transfer of the votes of excluded candidates;

• deemed to be elected means deemed to be elected for the purpose of the counting of the votes but without prejudice to the declaration of the result of the poll;

• mark means a figure, a word written in the English language or a mark such as X;

• non-transferable vote means a ballot paper—

  (a)

  on which no second or subsequent preference is recorded for a continuing candidate, or

  (b)

  which is excluded by the returning officer under rule 50(4);

• preference as used in the following contexts has the meaning assigned below:—

  (a)

  first preference means the figure 1 or any mark or word which clearly indicates a first (or only) preference;

  (b)

  next available preference means a preference which is the second or, as the case may be, subsequent preference recorded in consecutive order for a continuing candidate (any candidate who is deemed to be elected or is excluded thereby being ignored), and

  (c)

  in this context, a second preference is shown by the figure 2 or any mark or word which clearly indicates a second preference, a third preference by the figure 3 or any mark or word which clearly indicates a third preference, and so on;

• quota means the number calculated in accordance with rule 48;

• surplus means the number of votes by which the total number of votes for any candidate (whether first preference or transferred votes, or a combination of both) exceeds the quota; but, references in these rules to the transfer of the surplus means the transfer (at a transfer value) of all transferable papers from the candidate who has the surplus;

• stage of the count means—

  (a)

  the determination of the first preference vote for each candidate;

  (b)

  the transfer of a surplus of a candidate deemed to be elected; or

  (c)

  the exclusion of one or more candidates at any given time;

• transferable paper means a ballot paper on which, following a first preference, a second or subsequent preference is recorded in consecutive numerical order for a continuing candidate;

• transferred vote means a vote derived from a ballot paper on which a second or subsequent preference is recorded for the candidate to whom that paper has been transferred;

• transfer value means the value of a transferred vote calculated in accordance with paragraph (4) or (7) of rule 49, as the case may be.