Voting Local 2010
499 Responses
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I think this is a good day for Auckland. The Herald is calling the Auckland Council nominally left by a whisker but I think the mix is more interesting than that. As an Auckland City voter I'm stoked to have moved past a dysfunctional right-left status quo.
Len Brown's job will be to harness the leadership in his council without being bullied by it.
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Urrggghhhhhh
Feeling sick about the too-close-to-call in Welli. Prendergast can't win by 40 votes, she just can't! GO CELIA!
Can't someone just find a hitherto-uncounted stack of 100 Pro-Celia votes that fell down the back of the sofa or something?
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Jeez. They're not taking the Auckland result at all well over in Kiwiblog comments.
But for all their wailing this is hardly a far-left council. It looks quite centrist if anything. Again, I'm feeling quite optimistic about the ground available for consensus.
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JLM,
Aren't there 900 special votes still to be counted?
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There are 1000 special votes to count (people who didn't get voting papers and had to go to the council centres to vote). I guess it's possible that a majority of those might not be enthusiastic partisans for the status quo.
If Celia hadn't backed the Manners Mall redevelopment on dubious grounds, she might have got a few more voters to turn out (it wasn't just the nutters who opposed it).
Also, I suspect the vote on CERRA drove a lot of Green supporters who'd otherwise have worked for Celia's election to sit on their hands.
(Even if they voted for her against Kerry). -
I have every hope that the special votes will put Celia over the top. Man, that would be just an amazing result!
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I think this is a good day for Auckland.
I think this is a very good day for Auckland. At last we have a more representative council, and we're back to community boards, which I like.
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...so how come the "results" are now up on the elections 2010 website with no mention of the special votes yet to be counted (so it currently looks like Kerry has won)?
and
Wellington City Council already tweeted that Kerry has won ("based on preliminary results")
Isn't that a little premature?
Wellingtonista comment - 40 votes: now what?
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I am a wee bit confused. Who gets to be on the council and on the boards?
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Isn't that a little premature?
No.
The electoral officer is required by law to announce a preliminary result, including those preliminarily elected.
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3410,
Nice "Citizen Brown" photo by Dean Purcell.
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The electoral officer is required by law to announce a preliminary result, including those preliminarily elected.
OK fair enough - but nowhere on that elections2010 page does it actually say that - each set of preliminary results is headed "Results", not "Preliminary results" - and there's nothing on the page to say that there are still some votes to be counted and that these aren't actually the final results.
I guess I'm just being a bit pendantic - but there you go - that's me. A dangly pendant all the way.
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Scenario:
Len Brown gets Christine Fletcher to be Deputy Mayor. Cross the left-right divide, gets a male-female mix and also seeks to link together Central and South Auckland.
Seems reasonably likely? I'd prefer he went for Christine than Penny "holiday highway cheerleader" Webster from Rodney.
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JLM,
No more Michael Guest. Only Dunedinistas will appreciate that.
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OK fair enough - but nowhere on that elections2010 page does it actually say that - each set of preliminary results is headed "Results", not "Preliminary results" - and there's nothing on the page to say that there are still some votes to be counted and that these aren't actually the final results.
Hardly the WCC's fault, they don't control the site.
The Wellington City Council's page make it very clear every time it mentions results that these are preliminary:
The preliminary election results are now available
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Based on preliminary results, Kerry Prendergast has been re-elected as Mayor of Wellington by a margin of 40 votes.
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Election 2010 - Preliminary ResultsAnd its news story is headlined: " Wellington City Mayoral Result Undecided " and begins:
Mayor Kerry Prendergast has an election night lead of 40 votes over Celia Wade-Brown, but it won't be known who's won the race until special votes have been processed. Some 960 special votes were issued. The result may not be known until Wednesday.
What more do you want :-)
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I do like the STV voting system. Some candidates came through after 15 counting iterations (is that how you describe it?). And it only took the computer a few hours. Makes it feel as if some of your choices counted for something.
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For those in Auckland, this is a pretty good resource.
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a centre left mayor, record voter turn out and a considerable empowerment of South Auckland.
Just the destruction of democracy Labour predicted.
There were quiet a few centre-left people who thought that the amalgamation was a good idea and it has turned out to be so. Pity Labour opposed it.
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Thanks JLM. Quite surprised to be honest, but looking forward to the challenge! Been a while since I won an election (that's what happens when you spend seven years in the Alliance). Feels v odd to be honest!
Locally while we have had our best result ever for the local board, winning two out of six spots, we lost wonderful councillor Glenda Fryer which is a blow. Cathy Casey will fly the centre-left flag, and Chris Fletcher won the other spot by topping the poll. V relieved not to have Paul Goldsmith.
So excited about Len, and the fact he has the numbers to make some positive change!
And possibly evenore excited about the results in Tamaki-Maungakiekie, which bode v well for Carol Beaumont in 2011.
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Len Brown's job will be to harness the leadership in his council without being bullied by it.
Um, let's be fair here Russell -- there are twenty councillors who have a democratic mandate too and none of them were elected on a Len Brown ticket. Certainly not the two I voted for. If all that stuff about being "the Mayor for all Auckland" was more than an empty slogan, he going to have to be a damn sight better at genuinely listening to people saying things he doesn't want to hear than Banks and Hubbard ever were.
I agree with you that the Auckland Council is looking pretty "centerist", but looking at the list I can see plenty of folks, both left and right, who aren't going to have much patience for any delusions of grandeur from Brown. Ann Hartley and George Wood have already been there with Andy Williams, and so has the Shore.
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Len didn't have a ticket, but he did work assiduously on building loose alliances for over a year before the vote. Both with individuals running for Council and tickets like City Vision, seeking their cooperation to ensure he was considered The centre-left candidate for mayor. Certainly more councillors affiliated, loosely or by their own direct "I want to/can work with Len"-type proclamation (eg Penny Webster) were voted in than C&R (I.e pro Banks).
Hope that makes sense, sorry if it doesn't, tWas a long day and newborns don't take account of exhausting electoral victories when calling for a 2.30am feed ;) -
Hope that makes sense, sorry if it doesn't,
You've earned the right to get your babble on, but I do get exactly what you're saying. :)
My point, and perhaps I didn't make it entirely clear, is that of course I wanted the Council to work constructively with whoever won. But "working with" does not mean mean being a human rubber stamp. I've consistently been critical of both Banks and Brown for being policy-lite, and when you have that kind of mayoral race it's more important that ever you have a council capable of delivering a reality check or two. Really think Auckland got lucky there.
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I totally agree with you for once Craig! ;). No democratically elected body should ever function as a human rubber stamp - people have been elected to represent, and whether you follow the delegate or the trustee way of thinking on how that should work rubber stamping is no way to function.0
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McCarten today on the Herald seems to think that the left-leaning council (which he accounts for much in the way one would a Parliament) will form a block behind the Mayor and bugger everybody else. I'd rather hope it will work like you and Craig are suggesting, Julie, much as I realise it's closer to a corporate than a liberal political model.
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McCarten today on the Herald seems to think that the left-leaning council (which he accounts for much in the way one would a Parliament) will form a block behind the Mayor and bugger everybody else.
Just this once, I think we can forgive Matt letting post-victory euphoria (or a nascent hangover right on deadline) overcome his judgement. :)
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