Our elected representatives

Our council chamber

Local authority boundaries North Island

Local authority boundaries South Island
Maps showing the boundaries of regional and territorial authorities.

Choosing the council
How to enrol, how to vote, and how to stand for a range of local elected positions

Māori constituencies
Environment Bay of Plenty is the only local authority in New Zealand to institute Māori constituencies. Read about their reasons and their process.

Kids voting
Auckland City Council provides schools in its area with a resource to help them understand how elections work.

STV
What Single transferrable voting is, and how it works.

What a mayor does
The ways the role is interpreted is as individual as the people – read on to see how some mayors work.

What councillors do

What standing committees do

What community board members do

What school trustees do

What district health
board members do

What licensing trust members do

Using the STV electoral system

What do you need to do?
How is a candidate elected, and what is a quota?
How are votes counted?
Why STV?

Between March and May 2003, a number of councils conducted polls giving their communities a choice in how to elect their representatives – the traditional First Past the Post (FPP) system, and the recently introduced proportional electoral system, Single Transferable Vote (STV). In 2004 the local body elections will use both of these – STV for the district health boards and the ten local authorities that have opted for STV; and FPP for the remainder of the local authorities.

What do you need to do?

In an STV election, you use numbers instead of the ticks you use in First Past the Post elections. It is simple to vote. Instead of putting a tick beside the candidates you want to vote for, you rank them with numbers. In other words, you number them in order of preference. You begin with ‘1’, for the person you like best. By giving the number 1 to a candidate, you are saying that the candidate is your number one choice. By ranking candidates in your preferred order – 1,2,3 and so on – you are saying which candidates you prefer if your top choice doesn’t have enough support to get in, or does not need all the votes they get. You can rank all the candidates on the voting document, or as few as you wish.

How is a candidate elected, and what is a quota?

Candidates need to reach a set number of votes to be elected. This is called a quota, and is based on the total number of votes and the number of people needed to be elected to fill all the vacant positions.

How are votes counted?

The process for counting is illustrated in the diagram. First preference votes are counted. If candidates receive more votes than they need to be elected, part of each vote is transferred to the voter’s second choice. The votes are then tallied again, and this process is repeated until all positions are filled. If a candidate doesn’t have enough support to be elected, all votes for that candidate will be transferred to the voters’ next choices. Votes are counted using specially developed computer software.

Why STV?

STV supporters claim that STV gives voters better representation, because all votes are counted – not just those needed to elect a candidate. Under FPP, if a candidate needs 10,000 votes to be elected, and gets 18,000 votes, 8,000 voters have made no difference to the composition of the council. Under STV, those surplus 8,000 votes would be redistributed to the voters’ remaining preferences.