A Queen's University researcher has launched a web-based competition to predict the outcome of the Northern Ireland European election on June 10.

Visitors from anywhere in the world are invited to forecast which candidates will win each of the three seats in the Northern Ireland constituency. They can do this either through a form on the web site at www.ark.ac.uk/elections/ or by email to explorers@whyte.com

Nicholas Whyte is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Governance, Public Policy and Social Research at Queen's and also works as a political analyst in Brussels, specialising in the politics of the Balkan region.

He first established a web archive of information about Northern Ireland elections after the 1996 Forum elections, and he says he set up the pages at least partly as a reaction to the ill-informed debates that were prevalent at the time on the Internet.

The pages came to be seen as an essential resource by politicians, researchers, the media, students and anyone interested in Northern Irish elections and their outcomes.

"Our local contest is part of a wider European election campaign," Mr Whyte said. "Through the internet, people from anywhere in the world can be involved.

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 democracy – apathy.

Mr Whyte has run five prediction contests on the elections site since 1998, including one relating to the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections in November 2003.

Northern Ireland Elections is a 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 2003 Assembly election contest attracted 187 responses, and the winners were a DUP activist and an English Conservative councillor.

The site has received financial backing from the Electoral Commission's New Initiatives Fund, and detailed information has recently been added on local elections from as far back as 1973.

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