Voting has got too complex
The local government elections this weekend have seen some striking results. While Christchurch’s mayor was safely returned, there have been some big changes to the leadership of Hamilton, Tauranga, Porirua, Hutt, Dunedin and possibly Wellington cities. And in district councils there is a lot of change, some anticipated and some not.
Notably, 20 woman mayors have been elected, the highest number ever. Nine of them are new to the job. Five will lead councils that have never seen a woman mayor before: Hurunui, Chatham Islands, Greymouth, Opotiki and Gisborne.
The results here in Christchurch weren’t really a surprise. Name recognition is high in local government and Dalziel Lianne is a proven worker for the interests of this city, having been a local Member of Parliament before turning her attention to city politics. And while there was little interest in change here, there are some welcome new faces around the council table who will hopefully bring fresh ideas to the policy agenda and the way this council works with its communities.
But what continues to be disappointing is the poor level of voter interest, particularly in our larger urban areas. Overall, turnout is slightly up across the country due partly to an all-out effort by many, including the media this time, and a strong swell of political activism around major issues like water quality and the impact that climate change is having on our local communities. But a city council elected by well under half of those eligible to vote can hardly say they have a strong mandate to run this city.
Let’s look at some of the reasons why turnout remains low. First, the expectation that people will eagerly vote for their local councils once every three years is an illusion.
Many councils have become too big and too distant from our everyday lives and despite the clear expectations on working with their communities in local government legislation, councils hold too many meetings behind closed doors.
The expectation that eligible voters will suddenly get interested when an election comes along just doesn’t fit with the fact that they have little idea of what local government does or few opportunities to be involved. Openness and transparency are the key to democracy as is a sense that voting matters.
Second, local councils just don’t do enough to promote local elections. Many of them contract the election process out to private firms so take a very hands-off approach here.
It has taken a central government directive, earlier this year, to see council chief executives charged with increasing the vote and this has resulted in some great innovations across the country. A stand-out example has been Hamilton city’s ’Shape your city’ campaign which, among other things, saw the council put up $15,000 to host a mayoral debate and challenge other councils in a vote-off.
And there are some great examples of smaller councils’ innovative ways of promoting these elections but overall council performance was poor.
Christchurch city council is a good example. There was no list of meetings held across the city to meet candidates on the council website, little mention of the election on its weekly Newsline until the last couple of weeks and apart from those campaign billboards put up by candidates and a few council ads, did we see any significant promotion in malls and across public places? Well I didn’t.
Worse – one resident’s group that ran a ’meet the candidates’ meeting attended by more than 200 interested voters were told they weren’t allowed to use any council resources for organising or promoting this meeting in case it favoured one candidate over another.
The third reason is that voting has just got too complex. Whilst the Local Electoral Act 2001 was intended to give communities more choice in local elections, having two different voting systems (FPP or STV) has meant that voters don’t just have an array of choices among many unknown candidates but they also have to watch that they use the right voting system when casting their vote.
Adding more options to the at-large and ward systems has also created another layer of choice and the election process for district health boards needs to be simplified, possibly through local constituencies so we only have to vote for local representatives rather than the whole lot.
It is not surprising that there is a direct correlation between these legislative changes and the gradually decline in voting numbers in the last two decades.
The Local Electoral Act is in need of a major overhaul. Despite a select committee review after every local election, a lack of interest from central government means that very little change occurs.
In fact, this select committee still hasn’t even reported back to Parliament on the 2016 local elections yet. Local elections should start at the beginning of the year with an Electoral Commission-led campaign on voting and the role of local government.
And this needs to be closely followed by individual council campaigns that build on strong connections already made with local communities and promote local elections, particularly among those who don’t vote.