Single Transferable Vote (STV)
The Local Electoral Act 2001 allows a local authority to use either the First Past the Post (FPP) electoral system or the Single Transferable Vote (STV) electoral system for electing its members.
For the first time in 2004 the Kapiti Coast District Council held its elections using the single transferable vote (STV) system. This system will be used again in the 2007 elections.
STV is a proportional electoral system and electors simply rank each candidate on their voting paper in order of their preference. To be elected, candidates must achieve a quota of the eligible votes during an iterative counting process that applies voters’ 1st, then 2nd, then 3rd, etc., candidate preferences until the correct number of candidates are elected. The Kapiti Coast District Council is one of eight Councils to be using the STV voting system in 2007.
The STV system is compulsory for all District health board elections.
To read a short description on how the STV voting system works, click here.
Also, you may wish to visit the website of the Department of Internal Affairs for a comprehensive statement on STV: http://www.stv.govt.nz/
First Past the Post (FPP)
The first past the post (FPP) electoral system will be used in 2007 to elect our representative on the Greater Wellington Regional Councillors, This is the system used in parliamentary elections to elect Members of Parliament. Voters indicate their preferred candidate(s), and the candidate(s) that receive(s) the most votes is(are) declared the winner(s), regardless of the proportion of votes that the candidate(s) received.