Introduction
You may have missed it but on Saturday, 8th of
October 2012 there were elections across New South Wales for local
councils. I was a candidate for Labor in
Parramatta City, Caroline Chisholm ward [PDF].
The
ultimate results for this ward are unchanged: 1 Labor and 2 Liberals
elected. There were swings against Labor and the vote was complicated by
the former incumbent Labor councillor standing as an independent.
As
the second candidate for this ward it was very unlikely that I would be
elected. Labor has never had a second councillor elected. Although a
Labor approved independent, Chris Worthington, was elected at one point.
There was a great deal of positive feedback from the community and the whole experience was very valuable.
How Voting Works
First I might outline how the voting works. You might wonder why there were 3 candidates for each party.
There
are three council positions, so each group or party to nominate up to
three candidates. The top three candidates after preferences are
distributed will be elected. The preferences are specified by the voter,
groups do not register preferences with the election commission for
council elections.
In more detail - to be elected outright a candidate needs 25% plus 1 vote.
This
25%+1 figure may seem a bit odd at first. When three candidates are
elected outright the three candidates require a total of 75%+3 votes,
meaning only a maximum of 3 candidates can be elected.
As explained in wikipedia the... election proceeds according to the following steps:
- Any candidate who has reached or exceeded the quota is declared elected.
- If a candidate has more votes than the quota, that candidate's
surplus votes are transferred to other candidates. Votes that would have
gone to the winner instead go to the next preference listed on their
ballot.
- If no one new meets the quota, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and that candidate's votes are transferred.
- This process repeats until either a winner is found for every seat or there are as many seats as remaining candidates.
When voting above the line the surplus votes in step 2 & 3
are first transferred to the next candidate in the same group / party,
then are transferred to the group / party indicated by the preferences.
Why a Party?
One of the excellent things about council elections
is that they are relatively cheap. For the price of a car someone can
mount a decent campaign for a council ward.
State or federal campaigns are much more expensive.
With
so much accessibility to independents why would anyone stand or vote
for parties such as Labor or Liberal? Standing t tfor a major party
means that you are part of a team.
If the party has had
success in the past then a candidate can continue the successful
policies. Many of the supporting people who made a previous term
successful can be turned to for advice. This can include current or
previous councillors in the ward and surrounding wards.
The
reputation of a party can persist beyond a single term, as can the
issues that a party stands for. For example most people would recognise
that Labor generally stands for social justice, environmental
preservation, heritage preservation and cultural improvement (whether we
achieve it is a different question).
In comparison it
is often difficult to ascertain even whether an independent is
conservative or progressive. Independents have more to communicate about
their platform because there is less familiar territory for voters.
Party
councillors are also accountable to party members whom live in the
electorate. Thus there is a structure in place for feedback to
councillors from the local community. Independents need to create this
structure themselves.
I welcome the fresh voices that
independents bring to local councils but there are also different
benefits to established parties.
Campaign
The campaign was off to a slow start. The former Labor
councillor for Caroline Chisholm, Paul Barber, was unhappy about not
being preselected. It took him a long time for him to decide that he
wanted to withdraw from the number 2 position, then it took a long time
for him to formally withdraw. He finally decided to run as an
independent.
Shahadat asked me to run as number 3,
while Paul Barber still had rights to the number 2 position. I was happy
to do so and expressed that if there was someone better suited I would
be happy to give it up too. Talking to other people the issue of female
representation was raised, so I suggested to Shahadat that a woman
should take my place if someone suitable could be found.
As it worked out Paul Barber dropped out, so I ended up in number 2 position and Deborah May was in number 3 position.
Realistically
Deborah and I had no chance of winning. Labor has never had a second
party candidate in Caroline Chisholm ward. Although Chris Worthington
was successful as a Labor-approved independent. Chris is a Labor party
member.
I was hopeful that the Greens candidate, Annie Nielsen, may have a chance this time but more about that later.
Shahadat
and his wife Jintana were very organised. Shahadat and I focussed on
shopping centres rather than door-knocking due to the limited time
available. Shahadat carried most of the load - with extra shopping
centre visits, train stations. We managed to send out two leaflets using
only volunteers. The volunteers were very reliable.
The campaign was a very positive experience and I learned a great deal about the organisation that is required for a campaign.
Technology
The heavy-lifting of the campaign was still
traditional electioneering. Mail-outs, posters and shopping centres were
the most effective forms of communication.
I set
up a Facebook page for the campaign and Sameer set up a website for the
campaign. I used material that had been already approved for other
brochures, so authorising the material would be as fast as possible.
I
did an experiment with paid advertising on Facebook and Google adwords.
The most important feature when using these tools is geographic
targetting. Both Facebook and Google offer targetting down to the suburb
level.
I found that geographic targeting worked quite
well but there was some overflow into completely unrelated geographical
areas such as Melbourne. We received 300 likes. A foul-mouthed
conservative called Gary made a few comments which related to the local
area, so obviously the advertising was effective at targeting the local
community. Thanks Gary for validating my advertising!
During
the campaign the posters at my home were vandalised with racist
graffiti and I received a letter which in context threatened vandalism
against my car. In addition other volunteers who had posters in their
yard had threatening phone calls.
Fortunately security
equipment is now cheap and widely available. I installed security lights
in the driveway and two video cameras - one overlooking the car and one
overlooking the signs. I bought a cheap video capture card from a local
computer shop.
The ubiquity and cheapness of this
equipment meant I could exercise my democratic right to ran as a
candidate and to support the party that I choose.
Results
The final results are
available
from Elections NSW. The primary count was available by about 8pm on the
night of the election, the final count including quota distribution was
not available until the following Thursday.
Labor
received 21.07% of the formal first preference vote - which is 4
percentage points less than the required 25%+1 votes. The former Labor
candidate turned independent, Paul Barber, received 9.50%. In the
previous election Paul achieved 33% as the Labor candidate - the current
total of the two, 30.57%, is about 3 percentage points lower.
The
Greens achieved 8.80% of the formal first preference vote - which is
down from the 11% that Annie Nielsen achieved as an independent.
The
informal vote was 1,100 - or about 6% of the total vote. Our
scrutineers estimated that about half the informal votes had the
intention of voting Labor. The possible 3 percentage points would not
have had an impact in this election but in a number of cases it could
make the difference.
There was a swing against Labor -
in fact there was a swing against Labor in most councils in New South
Wales - many people were positive but there were a number of people who
expressed dissatisfaction.
Voters can usually separate
levels of government, I don't think consistent swings observed across
New South Wales would occur unless there was resentment at a state or
federal level.
Although Labor and other progressive
candidates did not make any progress at this election, at least we
retained the council position - which a number of other wards did not.
Greens, Preferences and Informals
UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that Labor could have won on its own if there was a run-off between Labor and the conservatives. The conservatives could not have won the third council position in this election.
Labor received 21.07% of the first preference vote. The conservatives received a total of 60.63% of the vote. After the 50% is removed (it should be 2 more votes as well) the conservatives are left with 10.63% of the vote - assuming all the preferences flowed to one candidate with no exhaustion.
The preference swaps were still helpful for comfortably reaching quota.
To make up the difference to
reach quota we need about 673 votes. We could not have made up this
difference without the solidarity of both the Greens and Paul Barber.
Paul Barber's preferences were helpful and Paul did the right thing in honouring the preference swap in his how-to-votes.
Strangely
despite Paul Barber being a former Labor candidate and a preference
swap in the how-to-votes, only 507 votes out of the progressive total of
1,717 came through to Labor. 137 votes went to the Liberals and an
enormous 900 votes were thrown away (the voter's preferences exhausted).
This shows that nothing can be assumed in an election.
Labor
received 404 votes directly from the Greens and 94 went to Paul Barber.
852 votes were thrown away by being exhausted. This is somewhat
understandable as the Greens and Labor are distinct parties, although
there is a certain amount of overlap on some issues.
In
some other council areas Labor did not preference the Greens to reduce
informal votes or because no preference swap deal could be reached.
Actually the preference swap deal only covers the how-to-vote - it is
ultimately the voter's numbering that determines preferences in a
council election, even when voting above the line.
There
are a few good reasons why it makes sense to do a swap in Caroline
Chisholm: Annie is a good progressive candidate who would make an
excellent contribution if elected to council, the Greens in Caroline
Chisholm ward are very friendly and professional, and it stretches the
imagination that we would gain more votes through reduced informals than
we gained from the swap with the Greens.
Progressive
candidates also need to keep solidarity because an exhausted progressive
vote is effectively a vote for the conservatives. I am hoping that next
election Labor will be in a position to return the help we received
from other progressive candidates.
Labor could not have
maintained the current council position without the preferences from
other progressive candidates - otherwise we would be facing three
conservative councillors.
Written by Andrew Punch.
