WHY DID WDC CHANGE FROM FPP TO STV?
If I had a dollar for everyone who has asked me to explain STV (Single Transferable Vote) to them, I would be a wealthy woman. This year, Whangārei District Council has ditched FPP (First Past the Post) in favour of using STV (believed to deliver fairer representation) to elect local body politicians for the first time. Whilst STV is not particularly difficult to understand, just the mere fact that it is a new system will present challenges for those that are not particularly invested in voting in local body elections anyway. Getting the requisite candidates across the finish line is generally more lengthy and counting the votes more complex.
How does it work … If there are 7 candidates (as there are in my Ward – Hikurangi Coastal) you number them in the order of most favoured to least favoured. You can rank as many candidates as you want. If you only want to rank 1 or 2 (essentially reverting back to FFP) that’s fine. Just make sure you put ‘1’ and ‘2’ beside the candidate’s name – not ticks – otherwise your vote will be invalid. If a candidate gains the required number of votes (already set using the Droop quota), then that candidate is duly elected, the lowest ranking candidate drops out and their 2nd, 3rd, 4th … votes are added to the other candidates. With this system, it may take several rounds to get two candidates across the line.
So why am I, and many others, opposed to Councillors’ decision to unilaterally change from FPP to STV? First and foremost, It should not have been up to them to decide. Rather, it should have gone out to the public to make the decision on whether WE wanted to retain the FPP system or change it after the 2025 election. Given, the public is being polled on whether they want to retain Māori Wards or not at this election, one would have expected that this too could have been polled at the same time without incurring much additional cost.
Secondly, our voting numbers are already dismal and have been trending downwards for some time – in Whangārei District, only 43.3% of eligible voters exercised their right to vote in 2022. Given that many eligible voters are confused by STV, this could cause numbers to drop even further. I am of the opinion that Council should have kept things simple, retained the system that everyone is familiar with and instead put ALL their efforts into turning out the vote. Further, by polling people on a potential change to STV in the future – as opposed to unilaterally deciding for them – more people might feel inclined to engage in the electoral process. With good reason, many of us feel that our ‘voices’ don’t count and Council will do whatever they want to do regardless of what we want. When Councillors heavy-handedly voted to change the system, it felt like an opportunity to improve voter perception was lost.
How did our representatives vote? At a WDC Extraordinary Meeting held on 12 September 2023, a Motion to retain the First Past the Post electoral system for the 2025 triennial election and to undertake a binding poll of electors on whether the electoral system change from FPP to STV in 2028 and 2031 was put to the vote as follows:
For: Mayor Vince Cocurullo, Cr Jayne Golightly, Cr Phil Halse, Cr Marie Olsen, Cr Simon Reid, Cr Paul Yovich
Against: Cr Nicholas Connop, Cr Ken Couper, Dr Deborah Harding, Cr Patrick Holmes, Cr Scott MKenzie, Cr Carol Peters, Cr Phoenix Ruka
Abstained: Cr Gavin Benney.
RNZ Article – link