Catching up on a few emails, I realised that I’d neglected to post the second part of a post started in early September about the timeline for co-opting a replacement MLA (Conall McDevitt) and the sequencing of the process between the Speaker, EONI and the political party (SDLP in this case).
While relatively mundane it does illustrate the various stages and worth putting into the public name to remind us of the process the next time an MLA needs to be replaced. The relevant process can be found in Article 6B of The Northern Ireland Assembly (Elections) (Amendment) Order 2009.
The Electoral Office of Northern Ireland released the correspondence in answer to my FOI.
We learn that email is a suitable medium when asked to “respond in writing”.
Back in September, while we pored over the process and the SDLP expedited need to name a successor to replace Conall McDevitt, no one corrected my mistake that party leader Alasdair McDonnell was the SDLP’s nominating officer: it’s SDLP General Secretary Gerry Cosgrove.
Alan Meban. Tweets as @alaninbelfast. Blogs about cinema and theatre over at Alan in Belfast. A freelancer who writes about, reports from, live-tweets and live-streams civic, academic and political events and conferences. He delivers social media training/coaching; produces podcasts and radio programmes; is a FactCheckNI director; a member of Ofcom’s Advisory Committee for Northern Ireland; and a member of the Corrymeela Community.
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