Bar an almighty climbdown from the Northern Ireland secretary, a snap Stormont election is at this stage unavoidable.
With no ministerial Executive formed by the six-month deadline, there will be a legal responsibility on the UK Government to call an early Assembly poll.
Chris Heaton-Harris does not need to act immediately - the law only requires the vote to happen in the next 12 weeks - but he has insisted he will call an election at "one minute past midnight on October 28".
Read more: December Northern Ireland Assembly election to cost £6.5m
We will soon find out whether this timing should be taken literally or is simply a soundbite, but the Secretary of State has shown no desire to delay an election via emergency Westminster legislation.
This leaves December 15 as the likely polling day based on contingency planning by the Electoral Office.
If the Northern Ireland Office believed the pre-Halloween spectre of an election would scare the DUP back into power-sharing, the strategy has backfired.
A last-ditch attempt to restore Stormont gave parties an opportunity to berate the DUP for blocking the devolved institutions - but it was never going to result in a breakthrough.
Dismissing the debate as a "stunt", Sir Jeffrey Donaldson's party reiterated it will not return to power-sharing until unionist concerns over Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol have been resolved.
Like other parties the DUP by no means wants an election, but polling suggests it has nothing to fear from one either.
It would expect that hardening its stance against the protocol will help win back support which drifted last time to Jim Allister's TUV.
In the Assembly chamber, DUP East Belfast MLA David Brooks said that since May's election the message from unionists in his constituency has been clear: "Stand your ground."
The question is how voters will react to being forced trudging back to the polls for an election costing £6.5million amid a cost-of-living crisis - and 10 days before Christmas.
In a historic result Sinn Fein last time emerged as the largest party at Stormont and would be expected to comfortably consolidate this position.
The optics of the DUP blocking a nationalist from becoming First Minister will act as a lightning rod for Sinn Fein. The party has already begun running Instagram ads pitching party vice-president Michelle O'Neill as a "First Minister for all".
Polling also suggests Alliance will again be the third-largest party, leaving the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP as likely the biggest losers from a December poll.
As the nights draw in and the weather becomes ever more dreary, turnout will be a key factor.
However, a six-week election campaign in which parties are pushing to get their vote out can only serve to deepen divisions and harden the deadlock.
And after all the votes are counted, the DUP may still refuse to resume power-sharing - meaning a new six-month deadline on future elections begins.
The Secretary of State may think "elections always help", but it is hard to see how in this poll anything will be solved.
READ NEXT:
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- No action to be taken over Sinn Féin Irish-language road signs, Stormont department says
- Call a snap election if Stormont is not restored by October, shadow Northern Ireland secretary says
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