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Nineteen years after Kaipara District Council abandoned first-past-the-post (FPP) electoral voting in favour of the single transferable voting system (STV) for local government elections, councillors have voted to reverse course, returning to the FPP formula that is used by most councils in New Zealand.
At a meeting in late July, Mayor Craig Jepson proposed a motion to introduce the FPP system for the next two local government elections, in 2025 and 2028.
“I’m an advocate of going back to FPP because when I stood in the previous election I think STV still confuses people,” he said. “They don’t trust it. They don’t trust a system where they can’t work all the votes out themselves, it has to go into a machine to get a result.
“And I think they yearn for simplicity of process.”
FPP is straightforward – the candidate with the most votes wins the position.
STV offers a ranked choice ballot, with voters selecting candidates in order of preference. If the candidate chosen first by a voter has enough votes to be elected, or falls out of contention, that voter’s support is transferred to the next on their list. Votes cast for candidates other than the leading one are, therefore, not “wasted”, as is the case with FPP.
STV is broadly seen as ensuring a more inclusive and representative outcome, but at the expense of confusing some voters.
In the 2022 local government election, KDC was one of just 15 councils that used STV, including four (Far North District Council, Gisborne District Council, Hamilton City Council and Nelson City Council) that did so for the first time. The other 63 councils all used the FPP system.
At the meeting in Dargaville, several members agreed that a simpler option was better, with Councillor Ron Manderson saying of STV that “so-called brilliant schemes” only increase the number of voters who don’t understand how the process works.
But Councillor Ihapera Paniora called a return to FPP “a step backwards”.
“STV is a better system moving forward, particularly if our positions are to represent all demographics and all people, and ratepayers which come from all different walks of life, cultures, backgrounds etc,” she said.
“That is a more progressive voting system, to ensure that the people who are sitting around this table are much more representative of the communities in which they serve.”
Paniora also contended that FPP favours blocs rather than individuals. She cited as an example Democracy Northland, an advocacy group that supported Jepson’s mayoral candidacy.
Councillor Eryn Wilson-Collins said she has heard a lot of support for STV in the community, with the system seen as giving the voter “more ownership of their vote” and bringing more diversity.
She conceded that STV was more complicated than FPP, but said retaining it would have provided further opportunity to educate the electorate on how it works.
The motion was carried, with Paniora and Wilson-Collins voting against it.
Most councils that moved from FPP to STV have stuck with it although two (Matamata-Piako and Thames-Coromandel) have reverted to FPP after using STV.
Under the Local Electoral Act 2001, a council can decide to change the electoral system or conduct a binding poll on the question. Electors can also demand a binding poll, based on a petition signed by at least five per cent of electors.
Proponents of FPP say STV can result in lower voter turnout. In Kaipara, turnout in the last FPP election (in 2001) was 58 per cent, but dropped to 51 per cent in the first STV election (in 2004). Apart from 2010, when turnout rose to 54 per cent, it has remained in the 40s since then. Turnout was 47.6 percent in 2022.
The next election is scheduled to be held on October 11, 2025.
