Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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It's also probably not a good idea to write them an open letter.
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Legal Beagle: The Review of Standing Orders, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Who introduced the Financial Veto into Standing Orders, Graeme? Was it Labour giving with one hand while taking with the other? Or is this odious concept a National creation?
Changes to Standing Orders are done by consensus, and usually by unanimity.
Something in the nature of the financial veto has always existed in New Zealand, and it's actually an improvement over what used to be there. Previously, Parliament couldn't even discuss money matters without the government agreeing. It can now discuss them, at least, it's just that I'd like this to go further.
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Sorry about the footnotes :-)
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to bmk,
On a semi-related note what is the rationale behind the Australian system making it compulsory to rank all candidates (ignoring the above-the-line option) doesn’t this just make it harder for people to vote and increase the likelihood of people not voting or just going from top-to-bottom?
I think it's related to their compulsory voting. If you want to final result to reflect the real preferences of the entire voting population, then mandatory exhaustive voting is the way to go about it. I don't think the intention is to increase the invalid vote, but to encourage voters to vote for everyone so that the final result actually reflects what people want.
But I'm just guessing. Even if that was the reason it was instituted, that's not necessarily the same as the reason it hasn't been undone.
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And you didn't think FPP needed a Q&A :-)
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Steve Todd,
If you click on the link to the dunedinstadium website, you can access several articles about STV that I have written.
Steve - don't know if you'd picked this up, but Stephen Franks seems to like your work:
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to bmk,
Sorry, I’m probably being dense but could you explain how to win two seats in a 3-seat ward you would need 50% off the vote? I would have assumed that 33.3% would be needed for each seat and to get two would need 66.6%. Or am I missing something?
If you have over 50% of the vote across two candidates, it is impossible for two other candidates to both have more votes than your two candidates. So the three winning candidates will be your two candidates, and one other.
E.g. Your Candidate 1 has 25%+1 of the vote, and your candidate 2 has 25%+1 of the vote (after the excess from candidate 1 has been apportioned), now one other candidate can have 50%-2 of the vote, but after the 25%+1 they need to be elected is taken out, no matter who the rest of the vote goes to, no other candidate can have more than 25%-3 support. It is impossible for more than three candidates to each have more than one-quarter of the votes.
If you want to see where your math goes wrong about the proportion of the votes you need to win in a two-seat race and a one-seat race.
One seat race is obvious - if you have more than half, no-one can beat you. In a two seat race, if you have more than a third, you might be beaten by one person, but you can't be beaten by two, so you're going to be in the top two, so you're in. If you want to win two seats in a two seat race, then each getting a third of the vote means no-one else can beat you, and you're both in.
If you needed 66.6% to win two seats out of three, that would imply you'd need to win 100% to win all of the seats in a race (including 100% to win a one-person race like a mayoral election), but you don't need support from everyone, just support from enough people so that no-one else can beat you.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Hebe,
Who may be a great choice, but no-one outside the party knows who she is.
It’s Labour and Christchurch East, at least so far as the election is concerned I suspect it doesn’t matter if no-one knows who she is.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Claims that local body is non-party are weakly supported by evidence.
I only mean it to the extent that the proportions of people who will vote for someone simply because their rosette is coloured red or blue is much lower than at general elections. I suspect that Green affiliation is stronger, tbh (although my hunch has no evidential foundation).
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Both Labour and the Greens are running candidates in my ward. What I did wonder is why they are only running one candidate in a three seat ward – lack of people wanting to run, or a desire to put all their resources behind one candidate?
Pretty sure it's the latter (in general, anyway, knowing nothing of your ward). Experience has told them not to split their vote, even under STV. People don't feel party affiliation nearly as strong in local body elections.