Posts by Graeme Edgeler
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Steve Todd,
So, to be clear, Kerry was properly elected
No dispute from me.
-
Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Myles Thomas,
By taking fourth places’ 2nd votes it could tip the second choice into the mayoralty despite the majority of voters choosing left wing politicians.
Unlikely I know.
Not possible. Someone has to get over half the votes. If left supporters all rank the centre-left candidate above the centre-right candidate, and left supporters are more than half the votes, then the centre-right candidate cannot get more than half the votes, so cannot win.
In reality, some left supporters will vote for the centre-right candidate, but if it's the example you give, the right can't win. There can be vote counting anomalies, but this isn't one.
-
Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Steve Todd,
As asides, I, too, am pleased the DCC has gone with random candidate-ordering.
At the last (or maybe last but one?) local body election, the Wellington councils each used different methods. One went for alphabetical, one for a single random ordering, and one for multiple random orderings (i.e different on each? ballot)
-
Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Given the esteem with which the Electoral Commission is regarded both nationally and internationally, I think we’re probably OK to have that dependence. I’d be more concerned if it was the appointed overlords of ECan who where running the regional elections.
The Electoral Commission plays no role in counting the votes for local body elections. It's role is limited to providing electoral rolls.
-
Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Hebe,
The huge problem with STV is that it is complicated compared with FPP.
Vote for your favourite candidate with a 1. And your second favourite candidate with a 2. Rank as many candidates you like. You don't have to rank them all if you don't want to.
You do not need to know any more than that.
For people who want a little bit more, you can add: if there's someone you really don't want, rank them last, and rank everyone else above them.
-
Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Health board elections would be less stupid if the boards were actually independent and had the ability to set the amount of tax they needed to operate.
Yes. In such circumstances I believe they would be required.
-
Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Hilary Stace,
I don’t think it is a good idea to rank everyone. There are some candidates I don’t want at all so not ranking them means they don’t even get considered.
They do still get considered, but based only on the votes of other people. Leaving people un-ranked means that, once the people you have ranked have been dealt with (either by being elected or by being excluded), you just have no more influence over the election. You consider the remaining people equally good.
If there are some candidates you "don't want at all", then you should rank everyone else above them. You really really should. I would not make this claim without being absolutely certain.
Leaving people unranked will never help anyone you rank. If there is someone you really do not want to see elected, ranking everyone else above them is the best make to make sure they aren't. There are no negatives to this strategy, but if you get down to the last two candidates for the last position and one is someone you "don't want at all", and the other is someone you merely don't want, your failure to rank Don't Want over Don'tWant AtAll means Don'tWant AtAll is more likely to be elected.
-
Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Hebe,
That is why Health Board elections are important; and often I admit to at best giving the candidate bios a cursory glance, ranking those I know of and leaving the rest.
I consider Health Boards are stupid because we shouldn't be holding boards responsible for this, we should be holding the Minister responsible. If people are getting bad food or are getting screwed over with car-parking costs, then the Minister shouldn't be able to say "that's a matter for the Board" and then take no responsibility.
-
I once voted against a candidate I met at an election meeting who was speaking to someone after the meeting and said something like "what most people don't know about STV is ..." before launching into an entirely misleading description of the STV voting system. I do not expect people to understand it, I really don't. I don't even expect people to understand first past the post, but if you are going to explain it to people, I reckon you should be careful. Consider yourself warned, Judith Aitken!
-
Hard News: A GCSB Roundup, in reply to Aidan,
Was Key’s decision to chair that committee because he wanted control, and didn’t want it going places he wanted to keep hidden?
The PM is always the chair of this committee – section 7(3) of the Intelligence and Security Committee Act requires it (or allows the PM to select someone, but that has not happened since the Committee came into existence). I very much imagine Key would have preferred not to do it on this occasion.