Voting in the Council Elections

Thorndon is in the Pukehīnau/Lambton Ward of Wellington City Council.

You do not need to indicate a preference for everyone on the ballot paper; only those  candidates whom you’d like to see in office.

Don’t rank others; doing so may actually help them jump over your higher preference candidates.

Single Transferable Vote (STV)

With the STV proportional electoral system any successful winning candidate in the ward needs to get a certain number of votes (called “Quota”). Vote counting is repeated (“iterations”) until 3 candidates have got above that number of votes.

How STV works

1. All first preference votes are counted, and any candidate who gets the quota is declared elected in that first iteration.  So your first preference is the most important.  You do not have “multiple votes”.
2. If not all slots are filled, the excess votes the winners got above the quota are transferred to remaining candidates who are second preferences on the winners voting slips.  It’s these second preferences of leading candidates (already elected) which push less popular candidates above the quota to then be elected.
3. Because there can be multiple iterations, the less popular candidates collect 2nd & then 3rd preferences from the extras of the most popular elected candidates.
4. In each iteration where no candidate gets above quota, the bottom candidate is eliminated and their 2nd preferences are then added to help push a middling candidate over the line to success.
5. Your lower ranked 3rd, 4th or 5th preference can help less popular candidates when there are multiple iterations.  So you must not give ANY preference to a candidate you don’t want to see elected. Otherwise your low preference can actually help them jump over your higher preference candidates.

More about STV here.