2010 Local Authority Elections Inquiry Submission
February 1st, 2011 at 9:05 am by David FarrarSUBMISSION OF DAVID FARRAR TO THE
INQUIRY INTO THE 2010 LOCAL AUTHORITY ELECTIONS
BY THE JUSTICE & ELECTORAL SELECT COMMITTEE
About the Submitter
- This submission is made by David Farrar in a personal capacity. I would like to appear before the Committee to speak to my submission.
Management of Elections
- With the establishment of an Electoral Commission that manages all aspects of our national elections (including enrolments in the future), I believe it is timely to consider whether the Electoral Commission should be given authority over our local authority elections.
- Purely on a cost basis, I imagine there would be considerable savings as 70 odd TLAs all have their own systems, or pay an external provider for them.
- More importantly, the Electoral Commission would add extra integrity to the elections. By this, I do not mean there are serious problems at the moment, but current returning officers are often staff of local authorities whom naturally form working relationships with current Mayors and Councillors etc.
- I do not ask the Select Committee to agree immediately to place the Electoral Commission in charge of local authority elections, but to request the Government to seek advice about the pros and cons of doing so.
Making an informed decision
- It is of concern that turnout for local body elections is very low. Even worse, of those who do vote – few cast what most would consider to be highly informed votes.
- In making such a statement, I offer myself up as an example. I follow news and politics more than probably 99% of the population. But even I struggle with knowing who to vote for on my local District Health Board, or how to rank all the candidates in my local ward
- Many people get elected to office based either on their ability to write a nice 200 word blurb, or based on the spelling of their surname.
Recommended Solutions
- That ballot papers be required to be in random order.
- Recognising that trying to select or rank dozens of candidates for multiple vacancies is difficult and off-putting, that the Local Government Commission be encouraged to move towards smaller wards – even one person wards. I think more people would vote, and have confidence in their choices, if they had to just pick one Councillor from their local neighbourhood (as well as a Mayor).
- The principle of smaller wards should also apply to Regional Councils and DHBs. Having their wards as TLAs, means that you ask voters to do the near impossible – intelligently rank 30 – 40 candidates, or even select 7+ persons.
- Having both STV and FPP in use at local body level is somewhat confusing. STV is excellent for single vacancy elections such as Mayoralties, but I find it very offputting for multiple vacancy elections due to the high number of candidates. If there was a move towards more single vacancy elections, then STV would be more widely supported I believe.
- That e-voting be trialled in the 2013 local body elections in a few areas. I believe e-voting could lift voter turnout, and also help with more informed voting as the online ballot could have links to (longer) blurbs on each candidate, or even candidate websites.
Related posts:
- Local Body Elections
- I agree with Twyford
- Improving Local Body Election Turnout
- Local Body Elections
February 1st, 2011 at 9:31 am
Yes it does need cleaning up, and your recommendations would be a good start. E-voting is a good idea, which should be used more widely, but you would have to make allowances for voters without internet access and computer illiterate voters.
Vote:February 1st, 2011 at 9:45 am
Why in 2011 do we still have voting papers?
Surely we can vote electronically?
Push a button a 5 minutes past closng time, woot a winner
Vote:February 1st, 2011 at 10:08 am
E-voting – great idea and for those who don’t have internet access at home, kiosks could be set up at the local library or Council offices. Worth trialling in a few places next elections.
Random order – while I appreciate the reasons for asking for this, I think it may cause more confusion than its worth because people inherently look for the names alphabetically – do you have any research from overseas that suggests that this provides a better outcome. Results in the most recent elections would suggest that just because your name comes at the end of the ballot paper that you are disadvantaged in any way – it comes down to the campaign you run as a candidate. But happy to be proven wrong.
STV – best system of them all regardless of the number of vacancies – remember you don’t have to vote for the full quota of candidates on offer (or necessarily rank all candidates).
Vote:February 1st, 2011 at 11:19 am
Good submission, David. Keen on your idea that the Electoral Commission could also manage local govt elections (I hadn’t thought of that!)
Vote:February 1st, 2011 at 1:27 pm
Random order – while I appreciate the reasons for asking for this, I think it may cause more confusion than its worth because people inherently look for the names alphabetically
Solution: Alphabetical sequence on 50% of the ballot papers, and reverse alphabetical sequence on the other 50%. (Then you can look up or down the list if you need to pick out a desired name. Faster than if they were random.)
Vote:February 1st, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Excellent submission DPF. However this bit I find confusing:
I agree it’s easier in single vacancy elections (but how’d they be implemented? One councillor per ward?) but surely it’s not that much harder to grasp in multiple vacancy elections?
If you’re voting ofr, say, 12 councillors you rank the ones you like. You don’t have to rank all the rest. If you only like one you vote for one and let your fellow voters decide the other 11, and so on. Seems fairly simple… or am I overestimating the average voter again? *sigh*
Yay! Someone promoted e-voting in a submission. And only 12 years after I was involved in the NZ Electronic Electoral Trial. That’s not a jibe at you, DPF (in fact you deserve a rousing cheer for raising it) but you think our MPs might have decided to dip a toe in the water by now.
Of course once they do, it opens the door to use plebs having an electronic say in all sorts of things and risks eroding their power, so I’m not holding my breath. When we’re all communicating telepathically and have evolved into gas clouds, our politicians will still be insisting on paper ballots.
Vote:February 1st, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Quite true Rex. williamson will have it all on his ipad so he can understand it.
What better way to sell the Broadband that is rapidly becoming a farce. When its here all voting to be electronic. Wow!
David, why is it that local body elections have a poor turn out? Has anyone given this any thought at all?
I can tell you a large part of the reason. Apart from the confusing nature of the plethora of candidates there are two real reasons.
The first, which also tends to apply to Parliament in occasional elections and certainly by elections, is that voters don’t care or don’t think that their opinions are will make any difference. So much Local Govt. work is prescribed in law or is compulsory or is in the better communities category that Councilors are rubber stampers of Govt. law. No local body outfight can say to govt. we don’t like the law you have foisted upon us, it doesn’t suit or area and we don’t want to do that thing. In fact they become defenders of those Laws, right or wrong, because it gives them all the excuse they need.
But more importantly many people have no financial incentive to get out and vote for prudent councilors. Currently for a large part of the population, the more that a council spends on nice to have’s etc the better for them, all done at no cost to them. I refer of course to all those people who live and or work in an area, make use of the facilities supplied by councils but contribute nothing to the rates account.
At the worst end of this group are the renters. They incur no responsibility for rates at all. Their landowner does but he cannot say to the tenant, heres your share of the rates like he can the water bill. Therefore those tenants never ever have any idea what it costs and worse they really don’t care if the council spends more money on the swimming pools etc( as Lyen Len wants to do).
The worst group of course are those in HNZ properties because the taxpayer not only props them up with the house but also pays the rates bill to the council.
Now I know all the deniers will come out and say the landlord recovers the rates from the rent, but in fact that’s simply illegal according to the RTA and doesn’t work in practice.
I asked Heatley to change the Act to allow landlords to recover the rates but he is too frightened of losing his seat in the next election to be clear and transparent.
Until people are made responsible for paying for what they use then, voting in local body elections will remain appalling.
Here’s the poll question; Considering local body elections for a moment.
do you pay rates currently y/n
do you vote in local body elections y/n
answer n. questions why 1,2,,3
If you were charged directly for your share of the rates on the property you live at would that make a difference to wether you vote or not?
and so on.
Vote:February 3rd, 2011 at 10:41 am
One thing that continues to be ignored is the need for CLEAN ROLLS, both for local government and parliamentary elections.
We do not have that at the moment despite requests being made to previous inquiries, most notably that which followed the 2004 local government election and the ‘stuff-up’ with STV.
When re-enrolment time comes around, those on the rolls are sent cards advising of their existing enrolment. Unless there is a change of any kind, e.g. occupation or address, a response is not required and the name stays on the roll.
But what about the thousands who have moved and whose enrolment cards are not on-forwarded or thrown in the rubbish? Simple. No response and they stay on the roll.
The result! At election time “they do not vote”. Thousands of voting papers are returned “gone no address”. In Dunedin the numbers have been as high as 4,000 to 5,000 with a big percentage of those almost certainly being former students who have graduated and “moved on”. I can recall, however, one set of voting papers being returned from overseas six months after the election!
The enrolment system needs to be “turned around”. A name should remain on the roll only if the enrolment card is signed and returned to the electoral office. The names of non-responders should be moved to a supplementary or ‘non-active roll’ so that their electoral qualification and right to vote remains valid. I understand this is how the process is handled in Australia.
As for postal voting, it must go. Its weaknesses, flaws and potential for abuse continue to be highlighted. In Dunedin voting papers have been known to be ‘harvested’. Trying to prove it though is very difficult.
I don’t see much point in making another submission on this. “Been there done that”.
Vote: