Comments on: STV vs FPP for Wellington

By: poneke

poneke — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:44:51 +0000

It’s not STV when there is only one position to fill, it is Preferential Voting

Preferential voting is simply STV in a single-member electorate.

As Mr Gronk above notes, Australia uses STV for the Senate. While they call the House voting system Preferential Voting, it has a similar ballot paper and way of voting to the Senate one and is counted in a similar way.

By: Mr Gronk

Mr Gronk — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:40:07 +0000

In Aus, where I lived for the last four years, and they use STV to elect the Senate, there are typically dozens of people competing for six Senate slots at each election (unless it’s a double dissolution and all 12 Senators are being chosen at once – then things must get really silly). To avoid daunting voters with having to rank all of them, they’ve allowed for “above the line” voting there – essentially a ranking of the candidates in the order chosen by your political party of choice. I think at least 90% of valid ballots use above-the-line voting there.

I think that’s the only way a multi-member STV election is really feasible (especially if there are more than two or three spots up for grabs). Especially in a situation where the voting public is used to just ticking the boxes for their preferred candidates.

That presupposes, though, that a strong party system exists at the local body level. To the best of my knowledge, that’s not the case for local body elections (though I grew up in Christchurch, and I don’t know the situation in Wellington). And I’m not sure a strong party system could really exist for committees dealing with such glamorous issues as roads, parks and water supply.

By: Graeme Edgeler

Graeme Edgeler — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:12:18 +0000

DPF: Yes and no. They actually use the full STV formula for the Mayor

Yes, but given that there will be no votes distributed from successful candidates who earned too many votes, it is identical to a preferential vote (the only votes redistributed are those from the candidates who are last after a round of counting).

By: s.russell

s.russell — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:49:29 +0000

The point about it being a challenge to fairly rank 15 candidates is a reasonable one. But YOU DON’T HAVE TO. Picking your top three is quite good enough and surely that is no harder than picking three candidates to tick in an FPP election?

Note also: emmess is right. It’s not STV when there is only one position to fill, it is Preferential Voting (PV).

By: deanknight

deanknight — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:35:33 +0000

DPF: Why not just rank your top 3, as you’re allowed to do?

[DPF: Because I normally have someone I want to rank bottom and you have to rank everyone in between then]

By: Owen McShane

Owen McShane — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:14:17 +0000

There is a serious problem with single councillor wards.
If your councillor is appointed to an RMA Hearings committee then you can no longer discuss with him or her any applications or other RMA matters which may come before him or her to be heard.
One solution is to have the Hearings all run by Commissioners.
But the other is to have a minimum of two councillors per ward to ensure people do not become disenfrachised on RMA matters.
This does not apply to hearings on Proposed plans or Plan Changes – just applications.

By: Graeme Edgeler

Graeme Edgeler — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:27:33 +0000

beat me to it, emmess!

By: emmess

emmess — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:08:43 +0000

It’s not STV when there is only one position to fill, it is Preferential Voting (PV)

[DPF: Yes and no. They actually use the full STV formula for the Mayor]