Posts by Steve Todd
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
In the year following the local elections, the Department of Internal Affairs puts out it's booklet, Local Authority Election Statistics. The 2010 edition is accessible at their website.
In past years, the statistics included actual numbers of members who were party-aligned, independents, or no party. In 1999, I think, I laboriously went through the figures for all local bodies and calculated the percentage of independents / No Party members at 85 point something. Not knowing the current figure, but knowing it wouldn't be much different, I said "*about* 85%", above.
However, I have now accessed the 2010 booklet online, and, at pages 28 and 29, discovered the relevant stats are now glossed over. It states that 18% of candidates were party aligned, 18% were independents, meaning 64% were "No declared designation" (NDD) - i.e., 82% were independents / NDD. It also states that 40% of the party-aligned candidates were successful, as were 37% of the independents. But, 53% of the NDD candidates were successful, meaning the successful candidates must have comprised at least 85% independents / NDD. Bluff successfully rebuffed, I think.
I agree with the rest of your post, but what you say is not the point. Yes, in 2010 we all knew Kerry was a member of the National Party and Celia was a member of the Green Party, but so what? They ran as independents so they could act independently, without having their party hierarchies trying to influence them. The same with other candidates all over the country. In any event, as you well know, National does not formally operate at the local level, so Kerry couldn't have said she was the National candidate for mayor.
I made reference to the 85% figure in the context of you saying you would prefer local councils to be elected by MMP, but you have yet to say how that would work. So, I now call *your* bluff.
Do you actually mean MMP? Or do you mean a Party List system of PR? How many members would locally-specific parties need to have, to get on the ballot? Would you intend that the current 85%+ local members around the country who are not party-aligned be required to declare their hand? What if they don't want / refuse to? In that case would the system shut them out? Is there a place for genuine independents (right-wing, left-wing, whatever) in your system? Exactly how would the seats be allocated to parties? And so, and so on.
If you haven't even begun to think about these things, Rich, and you're not actually trying to get your system included as an option in the Local Electoral Act (as I did, successfully, with STV), then saying that you want MMP in local government is just meaningless words.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Steven Peters,
>>> would not get into parliament - correct? <<<
Yes, correct. You would have to get 3% of the party vote to qualify to participate in the seat allocation process.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Steven Peters,
Regarding my graduated threshold proposal, I'll get back to you in the next day or two. It is based on my objection to the fact that, if a party gets 5% of the party vote, it gets 6 seats; one vote less than 5%, it gets no seats. That means parties lurch into, and out of, parliament, and campaigning and voting is based around polling as to how close to the 5% threshold, any given party is. It doesn't need to be that way. Of course, the starting point has to be set somewhere, and my proposal starts at 3%, but it could just as easily start at 2.5%, or 2%.
As an aside, I think that Graeme's figures show that your vision would need the removal of the threshold, even though you think it should not be lower than 2.5%, assuming the grouping(s) you mentioned would never have a leader / high-profile candidate capable of actually winning an electorate seat under FPP conditions in a party-oriented electoral environment.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Steven Peters,
All along, when people have said they would like to see MMP in local government, I have assumed they actually meant MMP. It seems to me that what you are describing is Party List PR (without the single-seat wards), and perhaps that is what Rich means, too.
Either way, you're talking about a party-centred PR election method, whereas, in my view, local government is better suited to a personal, candidate-centred election method, the best one on offer (that is truly responsive to the wishes of the voters, whether they be party-oriented or not) being STV.
I have another solution to the threshold question - what I call the graduated threshold, but this is not the place to launch into that. I will say though, that I have appeared before select committees four times now, and I am utterly disenchanted with the process. That is why I did not put a submission in to the MMP review committee this time.
My (very comprehensive) submission to the 2000 MMP review took me two years to prepare, and two months to carefully type up. Jonathan Hunt did not let me speak to it; I could only answer questions. And, like all the other submissions, it was utterly ignored.
So, given that my graduated threshold proposal would never be accepted by the politicians, I would be satisfied with a 3% threshold, with no one-seat exemption.
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The link to the 2002 Irish General Election is reproduced again, here. Hopefully, it will work now.
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Thanks for that, Steven.
I suspect Rich does not realise that about 85% of all local councillors in NZ are independents / No Party, so it's hard to see how MMP could possibly work. I would be interested in his thoughts on that.
Judging by a previous post, he wants overt party politics in local government in order to get an explicit Labour / Green council in Wellington, but he should be careful what he wishes for - he might get a more or less perpetual National / ACT council.
Local MMP would mean requiring the 'national' parties to operate at the local level the way they do at the national level. But, there are many people (with business, financial and other skills), who want to be of service to their communities without having to be members of and / or beholden to, a political party. Such people would be lost to our communities in a local MMP environment.
With regard to STV being adopted for parliamentary elections, we have to accept the fact that the matter is now settled, for at least a generation, and probably well into the second half of this century.
Electoral systems are notoriously difficult things to change. As far as I can determine, NZ'ers are the only people in history who have been given the opportunity to decide the way the members of their national legislature should be elected, at a binding referendum. Now that we, collectively, have confirmed our original decision, any future opportunity to re-visit the matter must surely, and rightly, be a long way off.
To get what *you* want would require the removal of the threshold entirely, so that the natural threshold of 0.83% applies (subject to the Sainte-Laguë (modified or not) seat-allocation formula), but the Electoral Commission recommended a reduction to only 4%, so your vision will continue to be frustrated, I'm afraid.
For the record, the Chch City Council is elected by multiple-FPP; 12 members elected from six 2-seat wards. There is no real prospect of STV in Chch for some time yet, but al least you get to elect your DHB by it. (All 20 DHBs are elected by STV.)
Unfortunately, STV is not exactly being "rolled out across all the local bodies". The Local Electoral Act 2001 provides for STV as an option only. It is up to local people to push for their councils to adopt it, or to force a local poll on the issue. Chch resoundingly rejected STV at a poll about 10 years ago.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
After many years of mayors being directly elected, I, too, have come to the conclusion that a return to the system whereby the newly-elected councillors choose / elect one of their own to lead them, is preferable (boring, but preferable), for the reasons you give.
But, I disagree with your view that local councils should be elected by MMP. It simply isn't practicable.
The idea is raised occasionally, and makes me groan every time. I was at select committee about 15 years ago, waiting to talk to my submission, when one of the representatives of a local council suddenly said something like, "Rather than STV, we should provide for councils to adopt MMP." I literally had to restrain myself from leaping up and making a scene.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Steven Peters,
Hello, Steven—
I acknowledge your response to my response to your message of a day or so ago.
Firstly, I apologise for coming across as patronising. I am a staunch advocate and self-appointed defender of STV, and that comment of yours that I reproduced, did not sit well with me *at* all. It was not only wrong, but potentially damaging (to the prospects of STV being adopted by more local councils). Also, I’m sure you’ll accept that your last sentence could only be taken as rather flippant, and, given that you clearly must know that it has no basis in fact, I simply couldn’t let you get away with it.
While I disagree with the Royal Commission that MMP is superior to STV, we were talking about the use of STV in NZ local elections, where the number of councillors varies from 6 or 7 to 21, usually elected from several wards. The chance to adopt STV for NZ national elections has gone, probably forever, so the following is somewhat moot, but I’ll try to convert you nevertheless.
Although STV is a proportional representation (PR) system, it is primarily a system of *personal* representation, which has the ability to give proportionality by more than just ‘party’ (depending on the number of representatives being elected, and the number and intensity of the issues that are of importance to voters).
I don’t have a raft of detail immediately to hand, but, yes, at the national level, it is quite possible for a party receiving 3% of first preferences to gain 3% of the seats. The obvious example is Ireland (see, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_general_election,_2002). Out of 166 seats (165** elected from 42 constituencies (3-, 4- and 5-seaters); ave. about 4 seats each), the Progressive Democrats got 8 seats (4.8%) on 4.0% of the vote; the Greens got 6 seats (3.6%) on 3.8% of the vote; and Sinn Fein got 5 seats (3.0%) on 3.9% of the vote. In 1997, the Democratic Left won 4 seats (2.4%) on 2.5% of the vote. There are many such examples throughout Irish electoral history. And, the great thing is, STV enables the election of independents – 13 in 2002 (some in 3-seat constituencies where they needed 25% of the vote to get elected).
** The Speaker is returned without having to face the voters.
The main reason why a system in which people vote for individual candidates can give party outcomes that are remarkably proportional to votes received, is because only the best candidates across the board (in the collective opinion of the voters, of course) are elected – unlike with the bloc vote (in local elections), which enables the lesser candidates of the majority to be elected, and ensures the better candidates of the minority are defeated. If STV were used to elect the NZ parliament (with most electorates being 5-seaters, not 3- and 4-seaters, as in Ireland), the leaders / high-profile candidates of the minor parties would often secure one of the 5 (or 7) seats, especially, on offer. For example, in a 7-seat Auckland electorate, Winston Peters would get one of those seats; in a 5-seat Wellington electorate, Russel Norman would get elected. (High-profile minor-party candidates only have to appeal to their own, local voters – just 16.7% of them in a 5-seat electorate; it doesn’t matter what the rest of the country thinks of them.)
Bearing in mind that 3% of 120 is only 3 or 4 seats, there is no reason why the minor parties could not achieve some measure of PR under STV. Given our current politics / party structure, it might seem hard to imagine, but, over time, our party system would change as STV voting bedded in; as people slowly came to realise the power of their vote. (In this regard, it is worth noting that Ireland has been using STV for 90 years.)
If you believe precise party PR is paramount, you might not be persuaded by my comments, above. But, the only reason minor parties get representation under the party-oriented MMP system is because of the one-seat exemption to the 5% threshold. However, once the FPP-holdover politicians (Dunne, Peters; plus Banks) have left the stage, so, too, will their parties leave, and non-Maori minor parties will be shut out, meaning PR won’t be quite as precise as it is now.
I consider ‘party’ to be just one factor to be taken into account when electing representatives, and I regret the fact that I will never be able to use STV to vote for my MP. Fortunately, STV is also perfect for NZ local elections – for any election(s), in fact – where, as you say, “party politics is … less important” (and where, therefore, the personal qualities of the individual candidates are *more* important), so at least I can console myself with the gains made there.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Steven Peters,
>>> However, the convoluted STV voting system would not enable voters to divide power in ways that reflect the diversity in local communities, particular in providing representation to marginalized groups. But maybe that is its real purpose. <<<
Oh dear, Steven, how wrong you are. I think you need to do some reading, my friend. For starters, allow me to refer you to the papers mentioned in my first post, at page 1, above; the second paper, in particular. The bits I would particularly like to make you aware of are reproduced, below--
>>> (c) The sorting of voting papers according to first preferences in effect arranges the electors who voted into generally unequal groups, each group supporting a single candidate. The transfers of surpluses and exclusions reduce the groups in number according to the number of places to be filled and make the initially unequal groups each approximately equal to a quota. The electorate is thus
arranged into the desired number of nearly equal opinion groups, each group with its own representative.>>> (d) Nearly every vote is effective in helping to secure the election of a chosen
candidate. The percentage of effective votes in an election is a measure of voter
satisfaction, and thus of the validity of an election method. In an election for seven places in any given district, the proportion of effective votes is about seven-eighths, or 87%. Under multiple-FPP, effective votes are routinely less than 50%. Nearly every elector who votes has an equal effect on the result and is directly represented by someone whom he or she has helped to elect.>>> In voting, different electors may attach different weight to several criteria simultaneously.
>>> The single transferable vote gives proportional representation of this opinion structure of the electorate with an accuracy dependent only on the number of representatives simultaneously elected. The single transferable vote gives freedom of choice to electors and ensures, as far as possible, that that choice is satisfied and not distorted or frustrated. <<<
In other words, the more vacancies being filled (within reason, but that's another issue), the more "desired number of ... opinion groups" get to elect their own representative, thereby reflecting, as you say, "the diversity in local communities", particularly with regard to "marginalised groups."
Now, even if the part of your comment I have reproduced above, merely reflected a level of cynicism on your part, regarding the effect of STV in local elections, do you really think the STV electoral system would have finished second behind MMP, in the opinion of the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System, if it did not "enable voters to divide power in ways that reflect the diversity in local communities"? I don't think so.
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I have been reading through your October 2010 “STV Q&A” and the responses it generated. In an exchange with Paul Campbell regarding the outcome of the 2007 mayoral election in Wellington City, you stated that the incumbent, Kerry Prendergast, “was declared elected without having an absolute majority of votes cast.” This is not so. I have not seen any posts since then, in which you inform us that you now realise your error, so here is my explanation of the correct position.
Section 5B of the Local Electoral Act 2001 (Reprint as at 26 July 2004), referred to by Paul, only gives a “*General* Description of Single Transferable Voting”. The definition of “absolute majority of votes” is set out in Part 2 of Schedule 1A of the Local Electoral Regulations 2001 (Reprint as at 26 July 2004), clause 26, being, voting documents less non-transferable votes, divided by 2. Where the resulting number “is not a whole number, it is rounded up to the next whole number.”
Clause 31 states, “A candidate is elected if his or her votes equal or exceed the absolute majority of votes.” But, clause 32 states, “If no candidate is elected, repeat the operations in clauses 26 to 31.” In other words, the “absolute majority of votes” is re-calculated, taking account of the (new) total of non-transferable votes at each subsequent iteration of the count. This has the effect of reducing the absolute majority of votes as the count progresses.
At the WCC mayoral election referred to above, 51,328 valid votes were cast, meaning the initial “absolute majority of votes” was 25,664. No candidate’s votes equalled or exceeded that figure, so the lowest polling candidates were successively excluded from the count (and their votes transferred to the next preferences indicated by the relevant voters) at each of the next seven iterations. At the ninth (final) iteration, the total of non-transferable votes was 8,436. Therefore, the final “absolute majority of votes” was (51,328 less 8,436) = 42,892 / 2 = 21,446.
At that point in the count, Prendergast had 21,868 votes and was duly (and properly) declared elected. The two other candidates still in the race, following the exclusion of Helene Ritchie at iteration 8, Ray Ahipene-Mercer and Bryan Pepperell, had 10,899 and 10,125 votes, respectively. There was no need to transfer Pepperell’s 10,125 votes, because (1) Prendergast already exceeded the absolute majority of the votes *remaining in the election* (21,446), and (2) because, even in the extremely unlikely event that all of Pepperell’s votes had transferred to Ahipene-Mercer, his total of votes would still only have been 21,014 – well short of Kerry’s 21,868 votes (and of the 21,446 votes needed).
So, to be clear, Kerry was properly elected, because she attained a number of votes that represented 50.98% of the 42,892 voting documents on which a preference for her over Ahipene-Mercer and / or Pepperell was indicated. The 8,436 voters who had not indicated a preference for any of the last three remaining candidates, quite properly played no part in the final outcome. By *partially* abstaining from the election in that manner, they had, in effect, said that they had no interest in those candidates, and were therefore quite happy for those voters who remained in the election to determine which one of them would win. That being the case, the absolute majority of votes needed to win the election was reduced, accordingly.
I notice that Paul appears to continue to believe that the “absolute majority of votes” is the absolute majority as calculated at the first iteration (see his reference to “voters (who voted the full list)” 3 days ago). As I hope I have shown, that is incorrect. The absolute majority of votes could better be seen as a figure that is “50%+ of the votes remaining in the election at any given iteration.”
In conclusion, under NZ STV, no candidate is ever elected without attaining the final absolute majority of votes in single-seat elections, or the final quota in multi-seat elections.