Following from my earlier piece on candidate nominations, I thought it would be useful to cover some of the details of the vote counting process.
This will be, by necessity, a simplified overview. The interested reader should consult Schedule 5 of the Local Government (General) Regulation 2005 for a formal account of the process involved.
The first thing to bear in mind is that, while the Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council (QPRC) election is for eleven (11) councillors, and you will be asked to vote for at least six (6) candidates, you really only get one vote. The process by which that one vote finds its way to a particular candidate is the potentially complicated part of any proportional or preferential voting system.
The second thing is to note that nominating the minimum number of candidates—in the case of the Queanbeyan-Palerang LGA, with eleven councillors, that will be six individual candidates if voting Below-the-Line, or one Group if voting Above-the-Line—may not necessarily be enough to make your vote count, even though it would otherwise be a perfectly valid and legal vote.
As mentioned in my previous article, the proportional representation voting system used in NSW Local Government elections includes the option to vote either Above or Below-the-Line. With the 2016 electoral reforms that introduced optional preferential Above-the-Line voting for Australian Senate elections, all three levels of government now operate under a similar system, the only difference being the number of voting squares, Above or Below-the-Line, that must be marked to cast a valid vote.
For NSW Local Government elections, when voting Above-the-Line, only a single (Above-the-Line) voting box needs to be marked to cast a valid vote. A valid Below-the-Line vote requires the voter to place numbers against at least half the number of candidates to be elected—in the case of QPRC that’s six (6). Given the requirement for any Group of candidates with an Above-the-Line voting square to comprise at least half the number of candidates to be elected, the two methods of voting amount to the same thing—casting votes for at least six candidates. Apart from the relative simplicity of Above-the-Line voting, the difference is that, when voting Above-the-Line, preferences are fixed according to the order in which candidates are listed within the relevant Group, whereas, when voting Below-the-Line, preferences are identified explicitly by individual voters.
Moving on to the process of actually counting the vote, under the proportional voting system employed in NSW Local Government elections, a candidate will be elected if and when they accumulate a quota of votes, a quota being equal to the number of formal votes cast, divided by one more than the number of candidates to be elected, plus 1 (e.g. if there are 11 candidates to be elected, and 12000 formal votes cast, then a quota will be 1001 votes). In most elections under the proportional voting system, there will be candidates who are elected without ‘reaching quota’, but we’ll look at how this comes about in a moment.
When the ballot papers are first counted, they are ‘allocated’ to the first preference candidate (i.e. the candidate with the number “1” against their name for Below-the-Line votes, or the first member of the relevant Group for votes cast Above-the-Line). Any candidate with a quota or more of votes at this point is declared elected. Any over-quota votes, known as surplus votes, are then distributed to the nominated second preference candidates. The way in which the number of surplus votes distributed to another candidate is calculated is probably the most complicated piece of this particular puzzle and the interested reader is directed to the Regulation (referenced above) for the gory details. Suffice it to say that surplus vote preferences are passed on to the remaining candidates in appropriate proportions.
When all surplus votes have been distributed, the candidate lowest on the poll is excluded from the count. That candidate’s votes are then distributed according to the next preference nominated on the respective voting papers. If this results in another candidate’s achieving quota, that candidate is declared elected and any surplus votes are distributed.
The cycle continues until only the number of candidates to be elected remain in the count and, at that point, any candidates that have not yet reached quota are declared elected regardless.
In my next post, in the lead up to election day and with the above details in mind, I’ll look at some of the less obvious ways in which your vote can influence the election result.