Want a reason to support STV?

As the classic MMP cartoon goes, just look at who is against it. Yesterday, the Hamilton City Council voted to use STV for its next two local body elections. The move was initially opposed by deputy mayor Geoff Taylor. The reason? Because a voting system which provided accurate representation and enabled the election of a diversity of voices around the council table discriminated against and marginalised old white men:

Taylor said while he had no issue with increased diversity around the council table, there was an unpleasant side effect:

“There’s an ugly undercurrent that pops up every so often ... the old while male privilege argument,” the deputy mayor declared. “I’m a white man in my 50s. Don’t presume to know me. You haven’t walked a mile in my shoes. You have no idea of what challenges I have had to overcome to be here or what sacrifices I’ve made. You might be surprised.

“I would urge you not to fall into that trap of glibly marginalising one sector of society. Is that not the one prejudice that we have been trying to get away from?”

Because when you're privileged, raising up other voices looks like "discrimination", I guess.

But people like Geoff Taylor is exactly the problem STV is meant to solve. New Zealand's local government is basicly a gerontocracy, and before the last elections there were more councillors named "John" than there councillors born after 1980. It is unrepresentative and undemocratic. STV will fix that, in the same way that MMP is fixing it on a national level. Hamilton's move is a move towards a better, more equal New Zealand. And if Taylor doesn't like that, voters can judge him on it in 2022.

Local elections need STV

Local body elections are underway, which is causing people to look at local government for once. And many of us don't like what we see. Our local government is basicly a gerontocracy, stuffed with dead white males. There are more councillors named "John" than there are councillors born after 1980. This is not representative, it looks nothing like New Zealand, and it discourages anyone under 60 from voting.

What is the cause of this problem? Writing in The Spinoff, Hayden Donnell has a simple answer: its the voting system, stupid. FPP and the block vote allow a narrow demographic - old people - to utterly dominate local government, converting their plurality into absolute dominance. But there's an alternative, STV, which is used in a few areas. And the evidence shows that local authorities which use STV have more representative councils, which look more like their voters.

Currently only 11 councils use STV (I am lucky enough to live in one, and my council looks a hell of a lot better than the West Coast's). This needs to change. STV is more democratic. It produces more representative outcomes. It is likely to boost long-run turnout, as younger voters see councillors who actually look like them. It should be adopted nationwide.

Will Tasman choose STV?

There are local body elections later this year, which will give us an opportunity to vote on our local councils and their climate change and fresh water policies. But in Tasman, they may be voting on their electoral system as well:

Tasman district voters look set to be asked to make an extra decision in the local body elections this year.

Organisers of a petition for a binding poll of voters on two voting systems believe they have the required number of signatures but want to collect more to be sure.

"We think we have the numbers but we need to have a buffer," said petition initiator Liz Thomas.

Tasman currently uses the archaic FPP system (as seen in the NZ parliament before MMP). If the referendum is successful, it will give voters the opportunity to choose to use Single Transferable Vote (STV) instead. I hope they do - STV is a much more democratic system, which gives voters much more choice. While its not widely used - only 11 local authorities use it at present - its use seems to be growing as the old FPP generation dies off. And if we want better governance from our councils, then the first step is to move to a better election system, one which requires every councillor to have majority support, rather than allowing a small plurality to exercise unbridled power.

Typical

The gradual switch to STV has been one of the great improvements in local government democracy. It has meant a switch from a system which gave a narrow plurality total power, to one where people's votes counted. Naturally the right hates it. And naturally, National wants to use poor local body turnouts as an excuse to get rid of it:

The Government has flagged a wide-ranging review of how we vote in the local body elections, including alleged "turnoffs" - the confusing transferable voting system and the three-week voting period.

[...]

[Local Government Minister Chris Tremain] would ask the justice and electoral committee to investigate other ways to lift voter turnout.

"Part of this will be considering the confusion created by the single transferable voting system [STV], especially when voters are presented with [different] voting systems on the same voting papers.

So, they'll "lift voter turnout" by making people's votes worthless again. Yeah, that'll work. Meanwhile, the real problem - the fact that people don't really have much to vote for in local government (and when they do, Gerry Brownlee will just bulldoze them anyway) will go completely unexamined.

People vote if their votes count. Rather than trying to strip power from us, Tremain should be working out how to give us more. That's what will get us involved. But public involvement and public power are precisely what the National party exists to prevent. Why, if people can decide local body policy by electing candidates who take clear policy stands and have the power to implement them, they might vote against oil drilling, or giving all the water to dairy farmers, or other vested interests. And we can't be having that now, can we?

Democracy comes to Palmerston North

Palmerston North City Council has decided to switch to STV for its next local body election. Good. STV is a much fairer system than the undemocratic block vote, and gives real power to voters. I look forward to being able to rank people in my local ward, rather than just picking three old white men.

Switching to STV?

One of my complaints about local body elections in Palmerston North is the city's use of the outdated block-vote system, which gives disproportionate power to a narrow plurality. Now, it looks like that might be about to change, with the council's planning and policy committee voting to switch to STV. The decision still needs to be confirmed by the full council, but its a good first step. Unfortunately, there may be a democratic clawback:

And Cr Pat Kelly's support for the change is qualified. He said STV was better suited to city-wide elections rather than voting in wards, and he supported retaining the ward system.

However, decisions about how many councillors there should be and whether they should be elected at large or to represent wards cannot be made until next year.

STV works perfectly well within a ward system, provided the wards are multi-member - which is certainly the case in Palmerston North. But a faction of the council has been pushing for a move to at-large voting to further empower business and wealthy candidates, and cut out everyone else. It would be a shame if the switch to a fairer voting system saw them get their way.

Meanwhile, it looks like we won't be getting local Maori seats. I guess the council - largely made up of old white men - just doesn't see the need to ensure representation for anyone who isn't like themselves.

Wellington region moves to STV

Greater Wellington Regional Council has decided to move to STV from 2013. Good. STV is a much fairer voting system than the bloc-vote usually used in local body elections (which is in effect a "winner take all" for a narrow plurality). Meanwhile, I'm just hoping Palmerston North City Council, which is considering a similar move, will make the right decision and adopt a fair voting system.

Submitting on my local democracy

According to a brief in Saturday's Manawatu Standard (offline), the Palmerston North City Council is consulting on introducing Maori wards and changing the voting system to STV. I'll be writing a submission supporting both changes.

Maori are significantly under-represented in local government, with an estimated 5 - 7 percent of local authority councillors claiming Maori descent, versus ~15 percent of the general population. Dedicated Maori seats would ensure a Maori voice and help solve this problem, just as it has in central government. Currently, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council has such seats, and the experiment has been so successful that the Human Rights Commission is arguing for their adoption nationwide [PDF]; I'd like my council to do the same and be part of the solution, rather than clinging to the racist past.

As for STV, it is unquestionably a fairer system than the current block vote, which allows a narrow plurality to utterly dominate each ward and gives us no diversity of representation (either demographically or in worldview). STV would give us fairer electoral results and a better democracy, and could be easily retrofitted over the existing ward system with minimal change. The issue was last considered a decade ago, in 2002, and while it was voted down, I think its time to look at it again. If its rejected again, then people really will be getting the democracy they deserve.

Anyone but Prendergast

Stuff is reporting that Celia Wade-Brown has won the Wellington mayoralty by 176 votes. So much for Kerry Prendergast. And so much for her arrogant claim that people didn't understand STV. Instead, it seems they understood it very well indeed.

And now the capital has a Green mayor. I'm looking forward to that change in transport priorities already...

Blaming the electoral system

So, with less than two hours to go until we find out who has won the Wellington mayoralty, incumbent Kerry Prendergast is pre-emptively blaming STV for any loss. According to Prendergast, it is "unfair and undemocratic" to require mayors to have majority support, and to use a voting system which takes second and lower preferences into account to determine that. And then there's this bit:

"At this stage, Celia [Wade-Brown] can't beat me, but STV can. I don't think members of the public have really understood the system. Some do, but the majority don't understand."

Or, to put it another way, "stupid ignorant voters not voting for me". But contra Prendergast, I think Wellington voters understood STV very well. They understood that they could rank candidates in order of preference, and they understood that they could rank her last, or not rank her at all, effectively casting an "anyone but Prendergast" vote. And it seems that many of them did exactly that.

In the ballot XXXII

Another batch of Member's Bills currently in the ballot. Previous batches are indexed here:

Electoral (Disqualification of Sitting Members in By-elections) Amendment Bill (Jim Anderton): This bill would amend the Electoral Act 1993 to stop current Members of Parliament from standing for election in by-elections. The aim is to avoid the absurd situation seen in the recent Mount Albert by-election, where all but one of the main candidates was already an MP, meaning that electors were effectively voting for the next person on the respective party lists, rather than who was actually on the ballot. If the bill passed, sitting MPs would be required to resign their seat to contest a by-election, facing a real risk and giving voters a real choice.

I have said before that I strongly support dual-candidacy, but the arguments for it (avoiding local vetoes, allowing parties to field high-quality candidates in electorate races) apply strongly to general elections but are utterly irrelevant in a by-election. I think this proposal is worth a look, and deserves to be sent to select committee.

Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Amendment Bill (Winnie Laban): Amends the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992 to clarify the rights of families of those seeking or receiving treatment. Currently the Act imposes a duty on clinicians to consult families. The bill expands on this to reflect and incorporate the SF New Zealand Code of Family Rights [PDF], while protecting the privacy rights of patients.

New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Change of Electoral System for District Health Boards) Amendment Bill (Michael Woodhouse): This bill would repeal the existing Single-Transferable Vote system used for DHB elections and replace it with FPP (or technically, the block vote). Ostensibly this is done to prevent voter "confusion", but it misses the target: the problem with DHB elections isn't the voting system, but the use of at-large election. This leads to a large field of candidates (14 for MidCentral, 21 for Capital & Coast, 27 for Auckland, and an astonishing 32 for Counties-Manukau - in each case for seven positions), saturating the decision-space, and reducing the task of making a decision essentially to one of random choice. Changing the voting system won't fix this - it will simply lead to less fair results, giving total control to a very narrow plurality.

As usual, I'll have more bills as I acquire them.

STV wins in Wellington

Wellington residents have voted to retain STV rather than return to the old "block vote" (FPP) electoral system. Good. STV is proportional and democratic, and allows citizens to elect the representatives they want. By contrast, the block vote (which we still suffer under in Palmerston North) allows a narrow plurality to leverage itself into absolute victory. Readopting FPP would have been a serious step back for democracy, and I'm glad Wellingtonians showed more sense.

[Hat tip: Poneke]

A reminder to Wellington readers: vote for STV!

Wellington City Council is currently conducting a postal referendum on the electoral system, asking voters to choose between retaining STV or switching back to the old FPP block-vote system. If you're on the electoral roll in Wellington, you should have received voting papers in the mail over the weekend. They are due back by 12 noon on Saturday 27 September, but its probably best to post them early, just to make sure.

As for which to vote for, I'd say STV. It's democratic, it's proportional, it gives voters more choice and control. Whereas the block vote - FPP in multi-member wards - is about as undemocratic as you can get, and allows a plurality to leverage itself into absolute victory (something I've seen happen far too often in Palmerston North). I know most people don't care about local government - but if you do, or might, then please vote for the democratic system rather than the undemocratic one.

Further information on the two electoral systems is available here.

Northern Ireland elections

Northern Ireland went to the polls yesterday to elect a new Northern Ireland Assembly. The election was conducted under STV, with 6 members elected from each of 18 districts. The parties seem to have a good grasp on the system, with tactical nominations based on the expected level of support rather than the FPP scattergun "contest every seat" strategy. Despite Northern Ireland's long history of violence, the elections have been trouble free, and in a promising sign the non-sectarian Alliance Party has increased its seats (it has also seen the election of Northern Ireland's first ethnic minority representative - Anna Lo in South Belfast). On the negative side, not only has Ian Paisley (a rampantly homophobic lunatic protestant bigot) been re-elected - he has been joined by his son, who seems to be cut from the same cloth. Marvellous.

So far the count is 75% complete (results here) - but it is already clear that no party will gain a majority, and that there will need to be some power-sharing arrangements in order to form a government. Hopefully the parties will be able to rise to the occasion, rather than squabbling as they've done in the past.