Electoral SystemsPūnaha pōti

Electoral Systems

Two electoral systems will be operating side by side for the local government elections.

These are:

• First Past the Post (FPP)
• Single Transferable Voting (STV)

Organisations using FPP in 2016 are:

• Central Hawke's Bay District Council
• Hawke's Bay Regional Council

Organisations using STV in 2016 are:

• Hawke's Bay District Health Board

The FPP electoral system consists of the following:

• Electors vote by indicating their preferred candidate(s) with a tick.
• Voters must not tick more than the number of places to be filled
• The candidate that receives the most votes is declared the winner, regardless of the proportion of votes that candidate obtained.

The STV electoral system consists of the following:

• Voters receive a single (transferable) vote irrespective of the number of vacancies.
• Voters rank the candidates in order of preference, by writing a "1" next to the name of their most preferred candidate, then a "2" next to the name of the next preferred candidate and so on.
• Voters can rank as few or as many candidates as they wish.
• To be elected, a candidate must reach a "quota" of votes, which is based on the number of vacancies and the number of valid votes.
• When votes are counted, all the first preferences are allocated first
• A candidate who reached the quota first is elected. If there is more than one vacancy, and a candidate get more votes than the quota, a proportion of each vote for that candidate is transferred to the voter's second preference. If, as a result another candidate gets more votes than the quota, a proportion is transferred to the third preference and so on.
• If insufficent candidates reach the quota after the the first preferences are allocated and any surplus votes are transferred then the candidate who received the fewest votes is eliminated and each vote for that candidate is transferred to the voter's second preference. This process is repeated until enough candidates reach the quota to fill all the vacancies.

More information on STV can be accesssed from the Department of Internal Affairs website