Nearly 2000 votes didn’t count for SCDHB

Voters are using complication as an excuse when choosing representatives through the single transferable voting (STV) system, an electoral officer and local body election expert say.

Local government expert at Massey University, Dr Andrew Cardow, and Timaru District Council electoral officer Mark Low’s comments come after the weekend’s local body election results which show 1904 votes did not count in the STV-chosen South Canterbury District Health Board (SCDHB) section of voting papers. STV is a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation through ranked voting in multi-seat organisations or constituencies (voting districts).

Low said of those votes 841 were informal (votes that were filled out incorrectly), and 1063 were blank votes.

The informal vote figures have increased from 2016 when there were 746 informal votes but the number of blank votes has reduced, down from 1242 in 2016, which suggested more people overall had voted for the DHB,’’ Low said. He said there could be a range of reasons for the number of spoilt and blank votes.

‘‘Some people decide they don’t want to vote in the DHB elections or they don’t fill out the forms properly.’’

Low said the forms were not complicated if voters took the time to read instructions on how to vote.

‘‘Reading the voting documents is important. It is up to the voter if they do.’’

He said reasons for people not voting for the DHB were ‘‘probably varied’’ and may include voter apathy or the single transferable vote system is too complicated.

Cardow agrees the STV system is not complicated.

‘‘If someone says it’s too complicated I completely disagree. I don’t think it’s complicated. All a voter needs to do is rank in preference order their candidate.’’

Cardow said people who leave the ballot paper blank were only using ‘‘complicated’’ as an excuse. ‘‘In STV the requirement to rank is not mandatory so if you only wanted to vote for one person and wanted to put a 1 there you could.

‘‘They put a 1 beside a person they’d ideally have and then a 2 and a 3 beside a person they don’t really mind.’’

He said it was, in some respects, a fairer way of running an election.

‘‘There’s not the wasted votes because everyone’s votes counted unlike first past the post where if there’s a clear winner, and there’s always going to be a clear winner, your vote is more or less wasted.

‘‘STV is designed to the idea of someone who doesn’t have a majority support actually getting in.’’

Cardow believes STV does not get enough exposure to help the public to understand how it works.

‘‘I think there has been enough publicity around single transferable votes for the electorate at large to fully understand.

‘‘All they really need to do is rank people.’’

He said ballot papers are often left blank because people deliberately did want to put anything else on the form.

‘‘They are voting but what they are doing is making a no confidence vote. It’s quite possible you’re looking at the list and you’re exercising your vote by handing the vote paper without putting in a ranking.’’