Election '97: Postal votes surge in fierce Ulster contests

Fiercely contested elections in the west of Northern Ireland have generated such large numbers of postal and proxy votes that electoral staff have been almost overwhelmed.

Fifteen thousand applications have been made in three constituencies - Mid-Ulster, West Tyrone and Fermanagh- South Tyrone. As a result, electoral staff have been working up to 12 hours a day to process the applications in time for the election.

The record number of applications mean more staff have been taken on, some working up to 80 hours a week.

Such unprecedented numbers clearly point to an exceptionally high turnout on polling day.

Although the western counties of Northern Ireland have often been associated in the past with various types of electoral malpractice, the major parties who are involved were last night making no public allegations against each other.

A worker with the SDLP campaign in West Tyrone said his party had recently put through between 800 and 1,000 applications for postal and, in particular, proxy votes. He said 90 per cent of these were for students and nurses from the largely rural area who were living away from home.

Both nationalist and Unionist parties said they had been making particularly strenuous efforts to get their vote out, with one part of the initiative being the increased use of postal and proxy votes.

A particularly tight contest is going on in West Tyrone, a newly created seat which the Ulster Unionists, SDLP and Sinn Fein all claim they can win.

Passions are also running high in Mid-Ulster, where Sinn Fein ambitions to oust the defending candidate, the Rev William McCrea, are matched by Protestant determination to stop Martin McGuinness taking the seat.

The contest is not so close in Fermanagh-South Tyrone, where Ulster Unionist Ken Maginnis is favourite to hold his seat, but the constituency often produced particularly high turnouts, on occasion reaching almost 90 per cent.