District Health Board elections are held under the Single Transferable Voting (STV) system. With STV, instead of ticking the candidates you want to vote for, candidates are numbered in order of preference.The candidate a voter likes best is numbered 1, second best is numbered 2 and so on. Voters can vote for as many or as few candidates as they like.
By ranking candidates in their preferred order, voters are also saying which other candidates they prefer. In order to get elected, a candidate needs to meet a quota of votes, which is based on the total number of votes cast, and the number of people needed to be elected to fill all vacant positions.
How are the votes counted?
The counting process tallies all first preference votes. If a candidate is elected, they keep only the proportion of the vote they need to reach the quota. The surplus is transferred to the voters' second most popular choice.
The votes are tallied again. If another candidate gets more votes than needed to get elected, the surplus is transferred to the third choice.
A candidate who does not have enough support is eliminated and all his/her votes transferred to the next choices.
This process is repeated until all positions are filled.
Didn't the system fall over last time?
It needs a computer to calculate the votes under the STV system. A glitch in the software used in the 2004 elections left the results for seven city and district councils and 18 district health boards up in the air for weeks.
Will it happen again?
Warwick Lampp, electoral officer for electionz.com, said this time it would process the votes in-house. The company, which will process around 40 per cent of the district health board voting papers spanning 17 boards, expects to have all results out by noon on October 14 - the day after polling closes.
Electoral officer Dale Ofsoske said if results are not finalised by then a progress result of all preferences must be made to get an indication of results.
Independent Election Services, which handles most of the vote processing, aims to have its results out on election night.
