Fifteen New Zealand cities use STV in their elections.
Nelson (NZ) is to start using STV this year for its city elections.
The new system uses both half-city wards and a city-wide district.
Each half-city ward will elect four councillors,
the city-wide district will elect three councillors and the mayor.
Maori voters city-wide will vote to elect a single councillor by themselves. Maori voters can also vote for at-large councillors and for the mayor.
An article, see the link at the bottom of this blog, presents the past practice in a poor manner:
"In previous elections, voting in Nelson has been conducted "at large”, meaning that voters could vote for any of the 12 council candidates standing for election, along with mayoral candidates."
But the writer, I think, must have meant to say:
In previous elections, voting in Nelson has been conducted "at large”, meaning that voters could vote for up to 12 of the councillor candidates standing for election, along with a mayoral candidate.
This is Block Voting
in the last election (2019), 20,000 voters cast 173,000 votes in the councillor election.
This next vote using STV should be much easier.
for councillors, about 10,000 votes in each half-city ward,
perhaps 20,000 votes in the city-wide ward
about 2000 votes for the Maori ward.
so overall less than a quarter of the votes cast as compared to 2019.
The use of both half-city wards and a city-wide district means than any candidate who has support of a quarter of the city voters will take a seat, and any candidate who has support of a fifth of the voters in a half-city ward will take a seat.
this mixed system means that a thinly scattered group across the whole city (such as labour or seniors) has chance to get a seat, and a candidate who has concentrated support in a half of the city has chance to get a seat - as long as he or she runs in the right half of the city.
31 candidates ran in the one city-wide district in 2019.
perhaps ten will run in each MM district this time.
The low District Magnitude (just three or four seats in a district) means that there will not be many transfers of surplus votes. at most two or three in each district.
Perhaps four to six candidates will be eliminated in each MM district, these will lead to that number of vote transfers using the un-complicated "check the next usable marked preference" method.
No parties are used in Nelson elections but that is fine - STV, being candidate-based and voter driven, has proven itself able to operate well in both party and non-party applications.
(The mayoral election, held in conjunction with the STV councillor election, will likely be held using Instant-Runoff Voting.)
It should go well. (I hope so anyway).
Here's links to info on the 2019 election
https://our.nelson.govt.nz/media-releases-2/final-result-nelson-city-council-local-elections-2019/
https://www.nelson.govt.nz/council/elections/notice-of-2022-triennial-local-authority-elections/
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