Posts by Paul Campbell
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Kyle - I agree - that's the other part of the law that says it can be less
My point is that the law has 2 requirements - an absolute majority (in section 5B) and the STV what to do at the end of the counting process bit in the notes to programmers that you point to - both are valid, both are conditions that must be met for someone to be elected and as a result no one might be if enough people refuse to rank one or more of the candidates.
It seems a deliberate piece of law, maybe to appease people who can't understand the how to program it section and the chances of them being different (and no one being elected) are low but not impossible
So IMHO there is a reason to not rank the last candidate - you can effectively vote them out if enough people (50%) do it
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Oh and as far as "no hoper candidates" - I think it's quite safe to rank your mate who you know wont win or the local jedi/silly party person for lark as #1 in an STV election - just make the smart choices in #2-#n and your single vote will find its way
Here in Dunedin we have a local DJ running - he's basically the student candidate and almost certainly wont get enough votes to win (my guess is he'll come in 4th) - but there's no problem with students ranking him #1 - but they're wasting their votes unless they also rank some of the other candidates like Cull and Vandervis who have a more likely chance of winning
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Rich: that's what it says elsewhere - it's just that they added this preamble (section 5B) that has a slightly different (but similar) requirement for being elected.
If you dislike a candidate (like the people who foisted the stadium on us in Dunedin) then simply not ranking them is the best thing to do - the alternative , even if you rank them 90% of the way down) is the possibility of them actually getting your vote - if you don't rank them then your vote can't possibly be used to elect them
There's actually a "notes to programmers" section in the law that tells you how to implement the programming (I need to do a test implementation just to play with) my cursory reading of it is that it doesn't follow section 5B - so the act presents two requirements that an STV mayoral winner must meet to be elected (win the STV process, and have 50%+1 of the votes at the end of it)
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Kyle that's true and is how the low end explanation reads - but section 5B(b) of the Local Electoral act states:
In the case of an election for a mayoral or single member vacancy, has the following features:
(i) voters express a first preference for 1 candidate and may express second and further preferences for other candidates:
(ii) an absolute majority of votes for election is calculated from the number of votes and positions to be filled:
(iii) the first preferences are counted and, if a candidate's first preference votes equal or exceed the absolute majority of votes, that candidate is elected:
(iv) if no candidate is elected under subparagraph (iii), the candidate with the fewest votes is excluded and that candidate's votes are redistributed according to voters' further preferences:
(v) if no candidate is elected under subparagraph (iv), the steps described in subparagraph (iv) are repeated until a candidate is elected:The test in (iii) is an "absolute majority" (from (ii)) and it's referred to again in each voting round by the reference to (iii) in (iv).
Consider an STV election where all voter only rank 1 candidate - candidate A gets 20%, B gets 35%, C gets 45% - round 1 A gets kicked out, no preferences are passed forward, round 2 C wins according to the programmers notes but still doesn't meet the stricter constraint provided by section 5B of the act
As I said I suspect it's a drafting error - no one bothered to make sure that both parts of the bill said the same thing - so now you have 2 different constraints that have to be met to be elected. The argument against it being a drafting error is that the mayoral case is called out specially and the 'absolute majority' test applied explicitly and the intent was that mayoral elections proceed differentlt
I think it means you don't rank the people you cant stand and get to vote again if at least half of you can't agree on a mayor
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OK, here's a question for the local politics nerds: If one is inclined to vote negatively on the STV portion of the ballot, is it better to rank every candidate, so the ones you _least__ like are positively placed last, or is it better to simply not put a number next to them at all?
Mostly I agree with Hillary - find all the candidates you can stand, rank them, leave the rest blank (the street campaign going on here in Dunedin is "don't rank the rank leave them blank").
Remember in STV you have just one vote (even if you are voting for 3 positions in the ward) - to best use your vote you should vote for as many candidates as you can stand, the number you choose to rank should have nothing to do with the number standing (you only have 1 vote) - the more people you choose the more likely your vote will have an effect
STV is interesting, unlike FPP there are cases where you can actively vote someone out - since the law requires an absolute majority of votes cast in the first round of counting for positions electing just one position (mayors for example) if 50% of the populace don't check their boxes (rather than rank them last) for a candidate they can't be elected (I'm not sure if this is a drafting error in the Act or deliberate in that it puts two constraints on what it takes to get elected 50%+1 is the stronger - the other case involves the number of live votes in the last round of counting which is different if votes have dropped out because people don't check boxes) -
So I believe you can have an STV election where no one wins - it's probably rare but not impossible
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Or hand carry them to your local returning officer - which must piss them off no end because our votes are counted in Chch - how scrutineering gets done if no one can get there I have no idea
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I heard a (supposedly respected) local politician say exactly that at the Drinking Liberally candidate's meeting ... and he said it as if it wasn't a joke ....
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heh - the ODT reports "Out goes lawyer David Garrett and in comes lawyer Hilary Calvert, as ACT rearranges the deck chairs on its political Titanic."
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This is not about voting him out - the law says you can't run for council if you have a financial conflict of interest.
I think there are "Vote XXX Out" stickers all over where XXX is just about any of the people who voted for the stadium, I don't think Hudson is special in that regard
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Hudson is in an interesting position - he makes over $100k a year from his various directorships of council companies - that arguably makes his candidacy illegal under the Local Authorities (Members' Interests) Act which limits candidates contracts with councils they are elected to to under $25k - there's been a lot of feverish emailing going around the past few days challenging his being on the ballot at all (or even on the council).