Queen’s stage election prediction vote

A Queen's University researcher has launched an international competition to predict the outcome of the Westminster and local government elections on May 5.

On that day Northern Ireland's 18 Westminster seats and the 582 seats on 26 district councils will all be up for grabs.

The competition was introduced to inject some of the “thrill of a game” into the political process, and to help counteract one of the greatest threats to politicals - voter apathy.

Nicholas Whyte, an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Governance, Public Policy and Social Research at Queen's, said: "When I invited people to predict the results in 2001, 131 entries were submitted, but only four got all 18 Westminster seats right.

"I think this year's election will have fewer surprises, so I'm asking punters to also give their best guess of the local council election results."

Since 1998, Nicholas has run five prediction contests on the elections site within ARK, the Northern Ireland Social and Political Archive, which makes social and political material on Northern Ireland available to the widest possible audience. The last contest coincided with the 2004 European elections and a record 173 predictions were received.

Anyone from around the world can submit an entry from the Elections website at www.ark.ac.uk/elections/ .

(MB/GB)