It has been brought up by a candidate in this year’s Local Body Elections that Upper Hutt could change to the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system instead of the traditional First Past the Post (FPP) system. This page has been set up to function as a community discussion board. Feel free to put in your comments about either system. 🙂

Below is the information on each system, according to the Department of Internal Affairs’ website.

Single Transferable Vote (STV)

Under an STV electoral system, voters rank candidates in their order of preference. A good example to consider is an election to select three councillors for a ward in a council election. Under STV, you would write ‘1‘ next to the name of your favourite candidate, ‘2‘ next to your second favourite candidate and so on.

STV means that you have one vote, but can indicate your preferences for all the candidates. Under FPP, you would place ticks next to the names of up to three candidates, which means you would have three votes.

The number of vacancies and votes determines the quota a candidate must reach to be elected. The formula for deciding the quota is total number of valid votes, divided by the the number of vacancies plus one. This process is illustrated in the diagram at the link below.

First Past the Post (FPP)

Under the FPP (First Past the Post) electoral system, the candidate with the most votes wins. This is a very simple method of electing candidates and is widely used throughout the world. It was used in New Zealand for Parliamentary elections up until the introduction of MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) in the 1996 general election.

Although FPP is very simple, some people have argued that the results of an FPP election may not always reflect the wishes of the majority of voters. The following examples show how results of FPP elections may vary.

For more information on FPP, please visit: https://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/wpg_URL/Resource-material-STV-Information-More-about-FPP?OpenDocument

Ben Knowles – Editor / Operator @ The Upper Hutt Connection.