The Westminster election reinforces my claim that the DUP are unlikely to return 3 MLAs in North Down
After last years local government election I wrote that on the basis of the election results the DUP would probably lose one of the 3 seats in North Down.
The results showed that the DUP vote had fallen from 44% to 31%, a fall of 13%.
In the Westminster elections the DUP votes fell further to just over 23% which is just over half the vote achieved in the 2011 Assembly election.
The quota required to elect an MLA is 14.3% .Therefore in 2011 the DUP had 3.1 quotas and elected 3 MLAs. However on the basis of the Westminster election the party has 1.6 quotas. This would suggest that not only is it unlikely that they could elect 3 members, but even their second MLA will have difficulty reaching the quota.
