Editorial: Unionists need to vote all way down the ballot paper

​The council elections which are held today are of great importance.

This editorial column explained on Saturday why we thought they were so. Today we urge unionist voters to vote right down the list in their transfers.

Traditionally unionist voters were disorganised when it came to transfers, but this has improved in recent years. Many voters still seem not to understand the importance of voting far down the ballot paper. If for example you are a unionist and you stop after voting for unionist candidates, then your ballot could be of no consequence if it comes to allocating a last seat between either an Alliance candidate or a Sinn Fein one.

However unpalatable Alliance might be to many unionists, it is far preferable to a party that was once inextricably linked to IRA violence and celebrates such terrorism with increasing triumphalism. But some voters do not even descend down through the unionist candidates. This means that unionists can lose some seats, because, in the old adage, every vote counts.

The election expert wrote on these pages yesterday about how Alliance voters are increasingly transferring to nationalist candidates before unionist ones. That requires a long-term political response, to woo such centrist voters.

But in the short-term we have three unionist parties and all have a claim on unionist support.

Peter Robinson made a plausible case the other day that the DUP urgently needs a mandate for its action against the Irish Sea border, a stance which has been taken seriously in London and further afield. The Ulster Unionists can point to issues in recent years on which they were right, such as its opposition to disgraceful legacy structures. And Jim Allister’s TUV can say that it was emphatic all along in its opposition to such grievous developments.