How To Make Best Use Of Your Vote In The Tasmanian Council Elections

I had a request for information about this, so here is a quick primer on how I think voters should make best use of their votes in the current Tasmanian council elections.

Note that I have a very detailed guide to Hobart City Council and a slightly less detailed one for Clarence.  Kingborough voters may find this guide to party affiliations prepared by Lara van Raay (recent Local Party candidate) and based on responses from an impressive 15/16 candidates useful.

How many boxes to number?

For the Councillor elections, you are required to number the boxes from 1 to 5 (exception: King Island) each once and once only for a valid vote.  If that's all you feel you can do, fine.  But if you want your vote to be more powerful then the more boxes you can number the better.  If two candidates are competing for a position and your vote numbers neither, then your vote can't help decide between them and the decision will be made by other voters.  If you have numbered one ahead of the other, or one and not the other, then your vote may help if it happens to be still active in the preference process at that time.

Often people stop when they run out of candidates who they like.  If there are any candidates you are strongly opposed to, then it is better to keep going so that you can put other candidates who you might dislike slightly or have never heard of ahead of those you really cannot stand.  

Some voters are afraid of doing this because they think that numbering a candidate you don't much like might help that candidate beat one of your top picks.  That's not the way it works.  Your vote only affects one candidate at a time - your number 1 vote stays with your number 1 candidate until they are elected or excluded.  If they are excluded, it then passes to the next remaining candidate on your list at full value.  If they are elected, it may pass to the next remaining candidate at a reduced value.  If you rank candidate X ahead of candidate Y, the fact that you have ranked candidate Y at all can never help candidate Y beat candidate X.  

Numbering more boxes also makes it more likely your vote will appear in future recounts if councillors quit partway through a term.  

For the Mayoral and Deputy boxes, you only have to number 1, but again, your vote is more powerful if you rank as many candidates as possible.  I recommend numbering all the boxes (or leave the last one blank if you like, it makes zero difference.)  

I personally always number all the boxes for all three ballots.  That's a big ask for Hobart where there are 44 candidates, some of them very obscure. 

Which votes should I give the most thought to?

As a general rule who you put in your highest councillor positions, and the order you put them in, will make the most difference. If you vote all the way through, your vote could be still active at full value in a contest between the candidates you put last and second-last, but that's not that common.  Usually it will have used most or all of its value electing someone further up the list, or else one or both of your least-liked candidates will have got elected or excluded before your vote gets near them.  

There's apparently a misconception out there that your vote works as, say in the case of Hobart, 12 votes, and that if you number 12 candidates, thereby picking your desired Council, you've effectively "voted" for all of them.  In fact you have one vote for Councillor*, which starts with your most preferred candidate and then moves down the chain once they're excluded, or may move down the chain at a reduced value if they're elected.  Every vote after your first is a preference, to be available to the next candidate if available.  The order that you put your most liked candidates in matters.  Voting 1 to 12 and stopping is a lot better than voting 1 to 5 and stopping but it is better still to keep going!

(* Unless you're one of those people who has two votes via corporate voting, but that's another story).

Should I vote for different candidates for Mayor, Deputy and Councillor?

A person who is elected Mayor or Deputy has to also win election as a Councillor to take their place on Council.  So if you think someone would be the best possible Mayor/Deputy and the best possible Councillor, you should generally vote 1 for that person for both positions.  There has never yet been a case where someone was elected Mayor without also winning as a Councillor, but there have been a few cases where elected Deputies were not elected as Councillors and failed to take their seat.

On the other hand, it seems that some voters are voting 1 for a candidate who is not their most preferred Councillor candidate just because they have also voted 1 for that person as Mayor and realise their preferred Mayoral choice has to also win as Councillor.  Especially in the cities, this is unnecessary - it's extremely unlikely that anyone elected Mayor in a city won't also bolt in as Councillor.  Most Mayors top the Councillor ballot.

In general I recommend this: put the Councillor candidates in order of your preference for them as Councillors, and do the same for the Mayor and Deputy candidates for those positions.  In thinking about where to rank the Councillor candidates, ignore what else they are running for.  (I generally do the Councillor ballot first.)

If you're tossing up the first position on your Councillor ballot between a lesser known candidate who you think will be a great Councillor and a prominent Mayoral contender who you think will be just as good as a Councillor, I recommend voting 1 for the lesser known candidate.  They might need your first preference more.

Where can I find out about the candidates?

Outside perhaps of the very small councils where everyone knows everyone, candidates should have taken advantage of the free chance to submit a website link with the online version of their candidate statement.  However a lot of city candidates will at least have Facebook pages even if they didn't submit a web link.  I often find that candidates are evasive or too modest about their work backgrounds in candidate statements (eg saying they are in "small business" and not saying what sort it is) and I frequently find linkedin far more useful to get a view of what candidates have done and are currently doing professionally.  

It is up to candidates to inform you about who they are and what they've done.  If you feel you don't know enough about a candidate, that's on them, and it's a good reason to mark them down if you feel so inclined.

I recommend reading the candidate statements, but reading them critically.  A good statement tells you about what the candidate's background is, about how this will make them a good councillor and about how they intend to approach the role (or have approached it if they are an incumbent).  There are a lot of meaningless cliches - "common sense", "balance", "progressive" and so on.  

What are tickets?  Are they the same as parties?

Despite predictions of mass party infiltration, the candidate mix at these elections seems pretty similar to normal.  Most candidates are not party-endorsed though some are party members or have backgrounds of running for parties (especially the case in the cities).  

Sometimes candidates run on tickets where members of the group campaign together using common branding and cross-endorsements.  These tickets have no actual formal status, they are just groupings of convenience. Often the candidates who run together on tickets agree broadly on their approach to council politics, but even that's not guaranteed.  I recommend ignoring what ticket a candidate is on and judging them as a candidate, but for voters who don't have time for that, ticket cues can be useful.  

How councillors behave on councils doesn't always have a lot to do with any party connections they might have.  Greens will tend to vote a certain way, but when there are multiple Greens on a council they won't necessarily vote together all the time, and it's fairly common for endorsed Greens who get elected to councils to later become independents.  Labor members can slot in on either the left or right sides of their councils, and some Liberals can be hardliners while others will be Council centrists.  

More answers may be added to this guide later.