Posts by Steve Todd
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From my reading of the Local Electoral Act 2001 (as at 1 July 2013), it seems clear that, should Len Brown resign anytime soon, a by-election would indeed be necessary. However, the situation could well have played out quite differently, were it not for the Local Electoral Amendment Act 2013. (Before continuing, I point out I am in no way legally trained, and I most certainly am not a lawyer.)
Up to and including the 2010 elections, a mayoral candidate could retire (for any reason) at any time after the close of nominations and before polling day (section 69(a)). If the election was by FPP, any votes cast for the retired candidate would be void (section 71(5)). If conducted by STV, the retired candidate would be regarded as withdrawn and any votes given for that candidate would be transferred to the next preference expressed on each vote (section 71(6) of the Act, and clauses 9 and 36 (via clause 22) of Schedule 1A of the Local Electoral Regulations 2001).
The latter situation actually occurred in Wellington’s first STV mayoral election in 2004. A candidate by the name of Bryon Burke retired from the election soon after the commencement of the polling period (I can’t remember why, if I ever knew), and the 486 votes given for him during the initial burst of voting, were simply transferred to the remaining candidates (404), or became non-transferable (82). (His votes were incorrectly treated as if he was excluded from the count at the first iteration.)
Had this still been the situation at the 2013 elections, Len Brown’s opponents could well have approached him at the commencement of the polling period with their evidence, and who knows, Mr Brown might well have decided to go quietly, perhaps giving heart problems as the reason. On the other hand, he might have decided to tough it out, with the evidence being released very soon thereafter.
Either way, a different media frenzy would no doubt have ensued, leading who knows where, but which might well have resulted in a second retirement from the election (resulting, perhaps, in either Penny Bright or John Minto just edging out the other, and Stephen Berry, to take the prize).
Fortunately, all this was avoided. Section 69 was amended to provide only for applications for the cancellation of the nominations of candidates if they become incapacitated after the close of nominations but before the close of voting. Such applications must be made by the 2 electors who nominated the candidate, in any particular case, and must be witnessed by a Justice of the Peace, and must be accompanied by a certificate signed by a medical practitioner that certifies as to the candidate’s condition and that, in the practitioner’s opinion, the candidate is incapacitated.
New section 69A sets out what electoral officers must do upon receiving an application under section 69 (as amended). Basically, they have to satisfy themselves that the application is genuine, but, if they cannot make a determination, before the close of voting, that the candidate the subject of the application had become incapacitated after the close of nominations, the application is to be treated as having been declined.
If, however, electoral officers *do* satisfy themselves that the application is genuine, they must cancel the candidate’s nomination. That being the case, the consequentially-amended section 71(5) or (6), kicks in, and the candidate’s votes are either void, or transferred, as appropriate.
In the case in question, The Opponents of Len Brown might indeed have decided that getting him to organise the cancellation of his nomination, possibly requiring the necessary other parties to act unlawfully, was never going to happen, or might not happen in time, hence their decision (if they ever made such a decision) to wait until after polling day to release The Evidence, in the hope the pressure would force a resignation.
Whatever the reason or reasons for what happened, let’s all be grateful section 69 of the Act was tightened up in the manner described. (I suppose it all means, too, that mayoral candidates who now still want out before polling day, for any reason not involving incapacity, would just have to stop campaigning and ask people to vote for someone else – it appears such situations are no longer specifically covered in the Act.)
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Hard News: The non-binary council, in reply to Keir Leslie,
I agree that expecting people to rank more than five or six candidates is stupid. The solution is to get rid of multi-member wards! (And abolish DHBs full stop.)
Well, I really disagree with *that*, which is what the first part of my response was referring to.
And yes, Australian Senate STV is a very poor advertisement for STV, which I've said at STV Q&A.
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Ohh, for goodness sake, Keir, millions of people in Australia, Ireland and the world over, vote in both public and private multi-seat STV elections all the time, without any difficulty. And the public elections are mostly conducted at polling stations. People know they’re going to vote, and take along a piece of paper with their preferences already written down. It’s hardly difficult.
But you're right, though, that after expressing five or six preferences, "you've almost certainly had as great an input as you really care about." I've done a mock-up of a vote in Dunedin's 11-seat Central Ward (at Kiwiblog). The effective preferences on that single vote "helped elect” seven candidates, as follows:
Candidate A 48.422%, B 42.898%, C 3.845%, D, 3.816%, E 0.923%, F 0.062%, G 0.033%, with the remaining 0.001% going to the runner-up candidate, and therefore was unused – total = 100%.
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Hard News: The non-binary council, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
>>> Note they use three-choice STV (I think) rather than exhaustive STV. <<<
That’s because it’s a two-party system, Rich. And note, as Paul Campbell implies, the elections on that ballot paper are all to fill a single vacancy. (The San Francisco and Oakland City Councils are elected by "three-choice" single-seat STV.)
The system is designed to ensure (or simply assumes) a Democrat or a Republican will win, but gives voters who support neither party the opportunity to vote for an independent / third party candidate.
It is another, lesser, version of STV, in my view, down there with, but just above, Australian Senate STV.
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Russell, you refer to “the glorious STV lottery that is the Auckland District Health Board vote[.]” Allow me to disagree with the use of the word 'lottery'.
In that election, there are 27 candidates vying for seven places. Everyone has one vote, whereby they express their preferences for 1, some, or all the candidates, as they see fit. They give their first preference to the candidate they most want to see elected, safe in the knowledge that if that candidate is excluded from the count, or does not need all the vote to be elected, it will be transferred to the next available preference indicated on their voting papers, in whole or in part, as the situation dictates.
I am sometimes asked, why allow for the votes to be transferred when the seven leading candidates after the count of first preferences are usually the ones who end up being elected? The answer is, they were the leading candidates because they were the ones who were the voters’ collective genuine first preference choices, in a situation where the voters knew they were *in no danger* of wasting their votes.
That being the case, it stands to reason that the leading candidates are the ones who, by and large, will end up being elected after all the votes have been transferred, as the unsuccessful candidates are progressively eliminated. (Of course, candidates can, and do, come from behind, to snatch a seat.) But, the votes *must* be transferred for the system to work. If they’re not, then STV is reduced to an FPP variant known as SNTV – the single *non*-transferable vote (in multi-seat electoral areas), under which people would generally vote for candidates they think will win, rather than the ones they genuinely like, so as not to cast a vote that ends up being ineffective / wasted.
So, STV is no lottery. The candidates elected are the ones the voters, collectively, genuinely wanted. Furthermore, in 19 of the 20 DHB elections, only 12.5% of all votes cast in each election will be ineffective in helping to elect at least one candidate. (The Southern DHB is divided into a 4-seat Otago constituency (20% ineffective) and a 3-seat Southland constituency (25% ineffective)).
Contrast that with a multiple-FPP election. Take the Henderson-Massey Local Board election, for example. (That’s the one where those two ladies have changed their names, in the hope of obtaining an electoral advantage.)
In that contest, 27 candidates are vying for *eight* places, and each voter has eight votes. A voter’s eighth preference has the same value (the value of unity) as that voter’s first preference. Some voters will use just one vote, others some votes, and some others will use all eight votes.
The moment a voter casts a second and / or a third, and / or a fourth, etc., vote, that voter is voting against their most preferred candidate(s). Those later votes might well the ones that help *defeat* their most preferred candidate(s). (That cannot happen under STV.)
In addition, it is very likely that over 70% of all votes cast in this election will not help to elect a single candidate – those votes being the majorities of the eight successful candidates plus the votes given for the 19 unsuccessful candidates.
Under such appalling electoral conditions, the outcome of this election, and others like it, really *is* a lottery. The sooner the Auckland Council adopts STV, the better.
Finally, I wish Cheryl Brown-Talamaivao and Anne Degia-Pala every success on 12 October. Their election to the board will hopefully be the catalyst for the names of the candidates in the 2016 elections in Auckland City to be randomised (NB. not pseudo-randomised).
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Susan Snowdon,
One thing's for sure, Susan. No way will your vote, or any part of it, be wasted.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Thanks for bringing that to my attention, Graeme. I would have missed it otherwise.
My attitude is, no matter what we do as voters, someone is going to win. Therefore, we might as well take the opportunity afforded us to have our say as to who the winners will be. That is why I say people should express as many preferences for the candidates as they are able. Although Stephen Franks advises his readers to “Vote only for people you would be happy to see winning. Stop there[.]”, he also says “Only vote as far down the sequence as you actually prefer.” So we’re not too far apart.
Stephen intends to vote Young 1, Morrison 2. That is a good vote for him, because it is almost 100% guaranteed that one of those two candidates will still be there at the end of the count, so his vote is almost certainly not going to be wasted. Even if both of his two preferences are unsuccessful, it could not be said he had cast a wasted vote.
If a voter rank-orders, say, 14 out of 23 candidates, as I think I am going to do in respect of the Capital & Coast DHB, and a tiny, tiny portion of that vote ends up in the total of non-transferable votes, it can hardly be said that that tiny portion was wasted.
But, if you take the trouble to vote, and don’t bother to take the opportunity to indicate a preference for one or other of the two candidates who are most likely still to be there at the end of the count, when you have a preference for one of them, but don’t express it, then it can be said you wasted your vote.
When a candidate is excluded from the count, the counting of votes continues as if that candidate had never stood. Each iteration of the count, in both single-seat and multi-seat elections is, in effect, a new election.
Let’s say a voter really wants Kerry Prendergast to be mayor. She’s not standing this time, so that voter’s second preference becomes a first preference for one of the candidates who *is* standing. The same applies should that candidate be excluded during the count. The vote now becomes a new first preference for that voter’s third-preferred candidate, and so on.
So what happens if both Young and Morrison are excluded during the count? Let’s say there are still two candidates in the race. Stephen has now, in effect, declined to have his say as to which of the two remaining candidates should be elected, simply because he does not rate either of them.
He exhorts his readers not to “rank candidates to help make sure that at least a dog beats the genuine idiot.” The candidates he preferred are gone (with the count now treating them as if they had never stood in the first place), yet he would rather his vote be wasted (in effect, not to have been cast at all), than use it to help the dog – the lesser of the two evils he is now confronted with – beat the genuine idiot. Isn’t that akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face? If we all followed his advice, could it not then truly be said that we get the elected representatives we deserve? I think so.
I agree with you that we are all entitled to cast our votes as we each see fit, that our voting decisions are our own business, and are valid, whatever they may be – that is what I take you to be saying (in the introduction to your FPP Q+A) – but I continue to maintain that, whereas some votes are genuinely ineffective in helping to elect at least one candidate, e.g. the votes given for the runner-up candidates, some other votes are genuinely wasted, when they need not be. Stephen’s advice would see many votes unnecessarily end up in the latter category, and our (local) democracy would be the poorer for it.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to bmk,
Having now read Graeme's reply, I realise I omitted to complete my explanation by stating that, using the Lambton Ward example, the two Labour candidates would need a total of 5,020.5 votes for both to be elected (being a quota of votes each), which is 50% of the total of 10041 votes cast.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to bmk,
Hi, bmk. I’ve just this minute seen that Graeme has beaten me to it, but, just to be polite, I’ll put up my response, anyway.
Think of it like this. In a single-seat election under STV, the winner needs 50% of the votes plus one, to be elected. No-one else can attain that many votes. The same applies in multi-seat elections. In a 2-seat ward, the two winners need one-third of the votes each, plus a little bit more, to be elected. There is then insufficient votes left over for a third candidate to receive that many votes. In a 3-seat ward, the three winners need only one-fourth of the votes each, plus a little bit more, and so on.
In other words, the quota for election is found by dividing the number of valid votes cast by one more than the number of seats being contested, and adding a little bit more. Under NZ STV, that little bit more is one one-billionth of a vote (the votes are counted by computer). For example, in the 3-seat Lambton Ward in Wellington in 2010, 10,041 valid votes were cast, meaning the initial quota was 10041 / 4 = 2510.25, plus one-one billionth of a vote = 2510.250000001. Although it never actually happens in real elections, if the three winners each attained that many votes, the runner-up candidate – the last candidate to be excluded from the count – could at most attain only 2510.249999997 votes; not enough to be elected.
Just for your information, when the votes are counted in this year’s Northland District Health Board election, at which seven candidates will be elected at-large, the (initial) quota for election will be something like 45,000 / 8 = 5625.000000001.
I should point out that Graeme covers this in a slightly simpler manner at his post, back at the beginning of this thread, under the heading *But what about in STV elections where you’re electing more than one person?* In addition, I can’t let this opportunity pass without drawing your attention to my first posting, in response to Graeme’s article, near the bottom of page 1 of these responses. If you click on the link to the dunedinstadium website, you can access several articles about STV that I have written.
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Legal Beagle: Dewey Defeats Truman; or…, in reply to Moz,
Thanks for this, Moz.
I'm not exactly how sure how it would be done, but we have to come up with some way of polling the voters in respect of mayoral elections conducted by preferential voting that gives more meaningful information as to who the leading candidates are than did the Dom Post poll that prompted Graeme to put up his posting.
In mayoral elections, the great majority of candidates are independents. Therefore, it seems to me we have to determine the two-candidate preferred situation. I came up with how I thought it could be done, but I'm no pollster, so I'm really just floundering.
In the Wellington mayoral race, there are certainly four candidates, in my view, deserving of serious attention. I take your point that most respondents wouldn't "have any idea", which is why I suggested no more than three questions.
Hopefully, a polling company can step up and give it a go, doing as Graeme suggested, take heed of how the Australians do it, but I'm not holding my breath.