information:extraction, structural:reformatting, stylistic:style_transfer, stylistic:tone
Parliamentary elections

Prior to the establishment of Home Rule in Northern Ireland, the UK government had installed the single transferable vote (STV) system in Ireland to secure fair elections in terms of proportional representation in its Parliaments. After two elections under that system, in 1929 Stormont changed the electoral system to be the same as the rest of the United Kingdom: a single-member first past the post system. The only exception was for the election of four Stormont MPs to represent the Queen's University of Belfast. Some believe that the boundaries were gerrymandered to under-represent Nationalists. Other geographers and historians, for instance Professor John H. Whyte, disagree. They have argued that the electoral boundaries for the Parliament of Northern Ireland were not gerrymandered to a greater level than that produced by any single-winner election system, and that the actual number of Nationalist MPs barely changed under the revised system (it went from 12 to 11 and later went back up to 12). Most observers have acknowledged that the change to a single-winner system was a key factor, however, in stifling the growth of smaller political parties, such as the Northern Ireland Labour Party and Independent Unionists. In the 1967 election, Unionists won 35.5% of the votes and received 60% of the seats, while Nationalists got 27.4% of the votes but received 40% of the seats. This meant that both the Unionist and Nationalist parties were over-represented, while the Northern Ireland Labour Party and Independents (amounting to more than 35% of the votes cast) were severely under-represented.