Retain STV (Single Transferrable Vote) as the voting system for Dunedin City Council Mayoral and Councillor Elections

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A vocal minority, unhappy that their choice for mayor did not get elected, wish to push through a change back to an FPP (first past the post) system, in a thinly veiled attempt to get Dunedin's most divisive councillor in modern times elected as a minority mayor! A petition has been created by their supporters and it felt appropriate to 'balance the scales'

Why FPP is undemocratic, and STV is a much better system:

FPP works fine if there's only two candidates in an election. However, the real world is more complicated than all elections just having two choices. FPP is fundamentally flawed in an election with more than two candidates.

Here's a an example of why: there's a bunch of car fans at a show and the majority are Holden fans. The three cars they're voting on for car of the show are a red Holden, a blue Holden, and a red Falcon. The results are: red Holden 36%, blue Holden 25%, and red Falcon 39%. Under FPP the Falcon would win - even though more voters are Holden fans and never voted for a Ford! That's not fair or democratic.

But using STV the blue Holden votes would be reallocated to the red Holden (assuming of course the red Holden was the second choice of the blue Holden voters), and thus under STV the red Holden would be the winner because more voters voted for a Holden.

A certain councillor only wants to go back to the out-dated FPP system because they know they will never be able to get 50% of the vote for mayor. Under FPP Mayors can be elected - and sometimes were - with less than 30% of the vote! That's why Dunedin people forced the DCC to update to STV. With STV no one can ever become mayor unless they have over 50% of the vote.

It is also important to note that voters can use the STV system to cast an FPP vote (by voting for 1 candidate only), but it is not possible to use the FPP system to cast an STV vote! Those wishing for a return to the undemocratic FPP system therefore do not need the system to change, just the way they themselves choose to use the current STV system!

Richard Knights    Contact the author of the petition