NI council elections 2023: Vote counting has started

Counting of votes is set to begin later in Northern Ireland's council elections.

Voters went to the polls on Thursday to decide who would represent them on the 11 councils across Northern Ireland.

A total of 1,305,553 people were eligible to vote, according to the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland.

Polling stations closed at 22:00 BST on Thursday and ballot boxes were moved to the counting centres for the votes to be verified overnight.

The counting of votes in some council areas started at 08:00, with the first results expected in the late afternoon.

The final results are not expected to be confirmed until Saturday.

A total of 807 people are competing for 462 seats in council chambers across Northern Ireland.

The number was down from the 819 people who put their names forward for the last council elections in 2019.

Sinn Féin fielded the most candidates with 162, followed by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) with 152, the Alliance Party with 110, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) with 101 and the SDLP with 86.

The official turnout in 2019's council election, was 52%, when the DUP secured the highest number of seats.

The DUP, which is running 20 fewer candidates this year, hopes to save seats rather than gain new ones, analysts say.

Some predict it may be punished in the polls for blocking the formation of a power-sharing government at Stormont in its protest against how post-Brexit trading arrangements affect Northern Ireland's constitutional position.

Some predictions see Sinn Féin making gains as republican voters want to see Michelle O'Neill as the first republican first minister after her party became Stormont's largest in last May's Assembly elections.

Although she is entitled to the position she has been blocked from taking it up due to the DUP boycott.

The Alliance party saw the most gains in 2019's council elections - 21 extra seats. This year, the party put 110 candidates forward, its largest number to date.

The UUP was the biggest loser in the 2019 council elections, ceding many votes to the Alliance Party.

The SDLP hopes to retain its 59 seats from the 2019 elections, but predictions see the party losing out to Sinn Féin due to the DUP boycott.