scone.com.auWhat’s Your Preference?
WITH 13 candidates in Saturday’s election there will be four who are knocked out of the race, so voter’s preferences will be important.
For this election voters need to number at least five boxes for their vote to count.
The need to put preferences on a ballot paper is a bit like ordering a meal preference: beef, chicken or fish.
If the beef becomes unavailable you can list chicken as your second option and fish as your third.
Except that in this case you are listing your preferred Councillors and if your first preference does not get enough votes your vote flows through to the person you listed as number two and so on.
On the flip side there is also a quota.
So let’s say the quota to be elected is 800 votes, if a candidate gets 900 votes, 800 votes will flow to them and the extra hundred will then go to where the voter’s number 2 preference has gone and so on.
How to Vote Cards
Each candidate has printed a “how to vote” card, this is merely their suggestion for where they would like their preference to flow.
Their preference would flow for two reasons:
- they are knocked out of the race and the voter’s second preference then gets the vote and so on, or
- they have heaps of votes and so their vote flows through to the voters second preference on the ballot paper and so on.
If you have a favourite candidate the simplest approach is to follow their suggestion for preferences on their Hot to Vote card.
The ‘Other’ Way You Choose Who is Mayor
The Mayor after this election will still be decided by the Councillors, it is not until next election that may change if the vote is ‘yes’ for a directly elected Mayor.
But through preferences there is a way the voters can hold sway in who is Mayor.
In reading the political tea leaves, as seen in the how to vote cards, there are two main contenders for Mayor: Wayne Bedggood and Lee Watts.
For either of them to be elected Mayor they need to have four other Councillors who will vote for them, to give them the majority of five out of nine Councillors, hence factionalism is alive and well in the indirectly elected Mayor model.
The preferences of each candidate’s ballot indicates where their support will come from.
The Lee Watts preferences are the clearest: Lee Watts, James Burns, Liam Garment, Debora Haydon and Arthur Wright, each of these candidates all preference each other.
The Wayne Bedggood preferences are a bit more complicated because there are some inside the tent and others who are outside the tent, but are still likely to vote for Wayne Bedggood if they are elected.
There are preferences between the following: Wayne Bedggood, Kiwa Fisher, Maurice Collison, Sue Abbott and Joshua Brown.
The people outside the tent include Ron Campbell and Deirdre Peebles who have done a preference deal and Lorna Driscoll.
So, the upshot is if you want Lee Watts to be Mayor you give your preferences to James Burns, Liam Garment, Debra Haydon and Arthur Wright.
If you want Wayne Bedggood to be Mayor you give your preference to Kiwa Fisher, Maurice Collison, Sue Abbott and Joshua Brown.
Deputy Mayor
The Deputy Mayor is also probably predictable from the preferences, with the number two preferences from Lee and Wayne.
Wayne has given his to Maurice Collison and Lee has given hers to James Burns.
It’s Anybody’s Race
There are 13 candidates running, which means votes will be spread and every candidate is at longer odds.
Vote with your preference and make sure it is numbered 1 to 5 for it to count.
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