WHETHER you love it, hate it or don’t care, the fate of our present council voting system is in your hands next month.
Wellington city voters have had the Single Transferable Vote for the past two elections and can vote to keep it, or dump it, in a postal referendum to be run from September 5 to 27.
The opportunity to decide on the electoral voting system for mayor and city councillors is a follow-up to the 2002 referendum which established STV over First Past the Post (FFP) by a narrow margin.
Wellington City councillor Iona Pannett says STV is a fair, effective system ensuring a broad representation of the electorate.
“Under STV all of the votes are used – there are no wasted votes.”
She says the system puts all candidates on a level playing field.
“STV gives a candidate a much stronger mandate.”
In her guide to electoral systems, Otago University political studies lecturer Dr Janine Hayward says with STV, fewer votes are wasted, minority groups are represented, and broad proportionality is achieved. Its main disadvantage is that the public struggles to understand how it works.
With FPP, the results of the election are generally “less representative” of the electorate. There are obstacles to minority candidate election, and a number of votes are wasted.
The advantage of FPP is the simplicity of the process, including the ways votes are cast, counted and announced.
“Deciding which electoral system is best for your community may come down to deciding which is more important: process or outcome.”
The Wellington City Council website explains: “In a nutshell STV is where you rank candidates in your order of preference – 1, 2, 3 and so on – and FPP is where you place a tick beside your preferred candidates.”
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Electoral officer Ross Bly says: “The perceived view is that the real advantage of FPP is that it is a lot easier to understand.
“In my view, it is not difficult to vote under the STV system – it’s the counting of the votes that is complicated, but people shouldn’t worry too much about that.”
Mr Bly says a computer system, supplied by the Department of Internal Affairs, takes care of the complicated counting process – and it’s reliable and has been tested for accuracy.
In the 2002 referendum just 32% of the electorate voted and STV chosen by a margin of fewer than 2000 out of 41,000 votes.