Fears crowded race will undercut mayoral vote

Aaron Edwards. Photo / File

Using a proportional representational voting system such as Single Transferable Voting (STV) could help allay fears that the next Whangarei mayor could be voted in with less than 10 per cent support of voters.

That's the view of departing councillor Aaron Edwards.

The race to be the next mayor of Whangarei in October's local body elections is the most crowded ever, with 12 candidates - Stuart Bell, Glenn Chapman, Crichton Christie, Vince Cocurullo, Shelley Deeming, Sheryl Mai, Greg Martin, Isopo Samu, Stan Semenoff, Warren Slater, Warwick Syers and Graham Tadman - putting their hats into the ring. But the congested race has some concerned that the winner could get voted in with only about 10 per cent of the votes cast.

Mr Edwards said he felt that a proportional representation system would make sure the winner had more wide-ranging support than that.

Elections for the Whangarei and Far North district councils and Northland Regional Council are run under the First Past the Post system while Northland District Health Board uses the STV system. General elections are under the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system.

Under the STV electoral system, voters receive a single (transferable) vote.

Voters rank the candidates in order of preference - 1 for the candidate most preferred, 2 for the candidate next preferred and so on. When votes are counted, all the first preferences are allocated first. To be elected, a candidate must reach a "quota" of votes, which is based on the number of vacancies and the number of valid votes.

If there is more than one vacancy and a candidate gets more votes than the quota, a proportion of each vote for that candidate is transferred to the voter's second preference.

If too few candidates reach the quota after the first preferences are allocated and any surplus votes are transferred, then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and each vote for that candidate is transferred to the voter's second preference.