Auckland Council: Did your vote count?

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Forums › Politics › Auckland Council: Did your vote count?

Linuxluver

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#69862 14-Oct-2010 11:45

[UPDATE 2010-10-15: Here is a Google Docs spreadsheet - 2 sheets - I did of all the preliminary results. No need to login. Just click on the link. It's read-only. First sheet is the ward summary. Second sheet is the line-by-line of candidates / wards votes. Here is my blog post. ]

The guff in the run-up to the election of Auckland's new council told us it's "Your Auckland", so be sure to vote.

In light of the voting results, it's hard to see why anyone should bother.

I've done some math on the preliminary results in just the two North Shore wards and they are disturbing, to say the least.

When you add up all the votes counted and work out what percentage of those votes actually elected anyone to the new Council it's clear that the vast majority of voters elected no one at all.

In the Albany Ward, with 2 elected, the percentage of votes counted that wasn't cast for either one of them is 80.1%.

In the North Shore Ward, with 2 elected, the percentage of votes counted that didn't vote for either one of them is 69.7%.

(I included both informals and blank ballots - thousands of the latter - as both may have been protest votes - and clearly not for the people who won)

How can anyone say First Past the Post delivers representation when anywhere from 2/3's to 4/5's of voters didn't elect anyone?

I haven't done the rest of Auckland yet, but I doubt it will be any different. I started looking at it because I couldn't find anyone who actually voted for the winners. Now I know why. (Relatively) few people did.

First Past the Post is clearly a horrendous way of electing representatives who can actually claim to have a mandate for anything.

The case for STV in local body elections is overwhelming based on these awful results.

UPDATE: AK Council: Albert-Eden-Roskill Ward - 2 elected (prelims): 64.53% of votes counted elected NO ONE (61,700 of 97,120)

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#391739 14-Oct-2010 11:55

Are you comparing to the actual number of voting papers, or just the number of votes cast?

Comparing to the number of votes cast doesn't give a true representation of "support" as you can vote for more than one candidate on a single voting paper.

technicaljoe

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#391744 14-Oct-2010 11:57

I sometimes wonder about the effectiveness of democracy and its impact on progress...

Does anyone run business democratically? Imagine Dilbert, Wally, and Alice says, "we'd like a new Pointy Hair please" :)

Linuxluver

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#391747 14-Oct-2010 11:58

Kraven: Are you comparing to the actual number of voting papers, or just the number of votes cast?

Comparing to the number of votes cast doesn't give a true representation of "support" as you can vote for more than one candidate on a single voting paper.

if you compare an individual winner's total to the total of all votes, the percentage falls away to barely 10%.

My percentages allow for the possibility that at least one of your votes counted. So I totalled all vote for the TWO winners against the total of all votes returned....and derived these percentages. This is the best possible way of presenting the numbers if you want to assume as many votes as possible actually elected someone. So my numbers are sympathetic, not hostile...and yet it still looks terrible.

Otherwise, the winners in Albany got less than 10,000 votes each out of 91,000+...and it looks even **worse**....as any single winner got barely more than 10% support from all voters.

For north Shore Ward, it is also worse if you llok at individual winners...as the highest was under 15,000....out of almost 100,000 votes.

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bazzer

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#391751 14-Oct-2010 12:04

I didn't bother voting this time around, but in the past haven't we had STV for some things?

I don't know that it's necessarily better. What you're saying is tell us who you like best. They're not going to win, because if they did FPP would be just as effective. Now tell us who you'd like to win since your guy can't. I know you like your guy, but you can't have him, no one else wants him. OK, so now pick someone you don't want.

I don't see how it's that much better?

What about wards with only one rep? Shouldn't the guy that wins the plurality of votes be elected? Take Franklin. If 92% of Smeets supporters chose Glenn as their second choice wouldn't Glenn then win? Does that seem right? I don't know anything about Franklin, but maybe Glenn was a distant second choice to Smeets, why should those votes cause Morrison to lose?

Linuxluver

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#391753 14-Oct-2010 12:07

technicaljoe: I sometimes wonder about the effectiveness of democracy and its impact on progress...

Does anyone run business democratically? Imagine Dilbert, Wally, and Alice says, "we'd like a new Pointy Hair please" :)

The executive side business is typically a dictatorship. That's why business people typically dont' show much regard for democracy.

But the ownership is not only democratic, but also usually proportionally represented with votes based on percentages of shares owned.

That's why it's always funny to see business people oppose proportional representation....when if their money is involved, they INSIST on it.

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Kraven

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#391754 14-Oct-2010 12:12

Linuxluver: My percentages allow for the possibility that at least one of your votes counted. So I totalled all vote for the TWO winners against the total of all votes returned....and derived these percentages. This is the best possible way of presenting the numbers if you want to assume as many votes as possible actually elected someone. So my numbers are sympathetic, not hostile...and yet it still looks terrible.

Otherwise, the winners in Albany got less than 10,000 votes each out of 91,000+...and it looks even **worse**....as any single winner got barely more than 10% support from all voters.

For north Shore Ward, it is also worse if you llok at individual winners...as the highest was under 15,000....out of almost 100,000 votes.

I see...

In any case, I agree with your point on STV, it is a far fairer method of voting and gives a better representation of public support. Unfortunately I think the idea of ranking candidates may be beyond most voters!

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Linuxluver

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#391763 14-Oct-2010 12:24

bazzer: I didn't bother voting this time around, but in the past haven't we had STV for some things?

I don't know that it's necessarily better. What you're saying is tell us who you like best. They're not going to win, because if they did FPP would be just as effective. Now tell us who you'd like to win since your guy can't. I know you like your guy, but you can't have him, no one else wants him. OK, so now pick someone you don't want.

I don't see how it's that much better?

What about wards with only one rep? Shouldn't the guy that wins the plurality of votes be elected? Take Franklin. If 92% of Smeets supporters chose Glenn as their second choice wouldn't Glenn then win? Does that seem right? I don't know anything about Franklin, but maybe Glenn was a distant second choice to Smeets, why should those votes cause Morrison to lose?

You're presumption is that you only like one person and don't want the rest.

The reality for me was that there were about 6 people I would happily have voted for and been happy to see any of them elected. So STV would *definitely* allow me to express a valid, positive preference and have that aligned with what I want....versus what I do not want.

On an STV ballot I tend to rank all the people I like...and then either leave the rest un-ranked...or number them from best to worst toward the bottom.

But with 15 names on the ballot, I'd have happily elected at least one of 6 or 7 of them. As it is....I got NONE of my 6 or 7 out of 15.

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Linuxluver

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#391766 14-Oct-2010 12:27

Kraven:
Linuxluver: My percentages allow for the possibility that at least one of your votes counted. So I totalled all vote for the TWO winners against the total of all votes returned....and derived these percentages. This is the best possible way of presenting the numbers if you want to assume as many votes as possible actually elected someone. So my numbers are sympathetic, not hostile...and yet it still looks terrible.

Otherwise, the winners in Albany got less than 10,000 votes each out of 91,000+...and it looks even **worse**....as any single winner got barely more than 10% support from all voters.

For north Shore Ward, it is also worse if you llok at individual winners...as the highest was under 15,000....out of almost 100,000 votes.

I see...

In any case, I agree with your point on STV, it is a far fairer method of voting and gives a better representation of public support. Unfortunately I think the idea of ranking candidates may be beyond most voters!

There are lots of ways of doing STV. It's possible to list people by their party they are a member of (national elections) and then all the voter has to do is "tick the list" once and the preferences are defined by the party who put the list together. Or...they can go down the list and renumber them or number the candidates across all parties.

My own view is that any voter who doesn't know who to vote for should stay home and not pollute the outcome with their ignorance. Or do their homework.....much better. :-)

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nate

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#391771 14-Oct-2010 12:35

I struggled voting for our local DHB (I think it was). 24 candidates and you have to rank them from 1 (your most preferred) to 24 (your least preferred).

I think I got to 4 then gave up. Amazingly if you get one number wrong the whole thing is voided.

bazzer

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#391782 14-Oct-2010 12:47

Linuxluver: But with 15 names on the ballot, I'd have happily elected at least one of 6 or 7 of them. As it is....I got NONE of my 6 or 7 out of 15.

Which is likely your real problem. Given the difficulty people seem to have voting for even one person, how do you think they'll cope having to rank them?

Still, I'm just being troublesome I suppose. Clearly STV can yield better results than FPP, but it's not without it's flaws either. Another example, voting for one position.

A, B, C, D: 49.9%
B, C, D, A: 25.0%
C, D, B, A: 12.5%
D, C, B, A: 12.6%

Who wins? By my understanding it's D even though they got nearly the lowest number of first round votes and about a quarter the support of A. An extreme example admittedly, but if maybe one more person had voted for A they would've won (unlikely since A doesn't seem to have much support outside their voter base). If one more had voted for C they would've won (possible since they have strong support amongst B and D supporters).

Anyway, food for thought. I think in the end having so many candidates really dilutes the voter pool.

technicaljoe

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#391800 14-Oct-2010 13:13

nate: That was a pretty complicate selection process... Considering many of them are also standing for other positions... I wonder how they plan to multitask...

How do people decide who to vote for? Do people actually have good knowledge of the people they are selecting? Or do they just take a look at the photo and/or description and think "yeah, that one will do"? Or do they go to those debates and seminars? :)

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NonprayingMantis

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#391804 14-Oct-2010 13:33

No single person''s vote made any difference whatsoever to the outcome since no election was won by a majority of 1.

In that sense, nobody's vote counted.

nate

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#391856 14-Oct-2010 16:31

technicaljoe: nate: That was a pretty complicate selection process... Considering many of them are also standing for other positions... I wonder how they plan to multitask...

How do people decide who to vote for? Do people actually have good knowledge of the people they are selecting? Or do they just take a look at the photo and/or description and think "yeah, that one will do"? Or do they go to those debates and seminars? :)

I think it's a popular contest (for the city council positions) - most people vote for the names they recognise, not necessarily the political view that particular person has.

almaznz

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#391871 14-Oct-2010 16:46

i have to say that 1 of my 2 votes for the candidates got elected for the albany ward (Michael Goudie)

and also 3 of the 4 people i voted for for the Hibiscus coast loard board. i was just incessed by Wayne (w*****r) Walker getting into the super city council because he has been nothing but the thorn in the side of Rodney Districts Councils since he's been in council.

Linuxluver

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#392146 15-Oct-2010 10:48

almaznz: i have to say that 1 of my 2 votes for the candidates got elected for the albany ward (Michael Goudie)

and also 3 of the 4 people i voted for for the Hibiscus coast loard board. i was just incessed by Wayne (w*****r) Walker getting into the super city council because he has been nothing but the thorn in the side of Rodney Districts Councils since he's been in council.

Albany was the worst in the whole region for wasted votes: 80.85% of votes returned elected no one.

Michael Goudie got less than 10% of the vote. Wayne Walker got just over 10%.

First Past the Post is horrible....and the outcome in Albany should be all the proof anyone needs.

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