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'Unnecessary' Ipswich by-election could cost ratepayers up to $550,000

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-05/ipswich-council-votes-for-optional-by-election/104314384?

Ipswich City Council votes to hold an optional by-election to fill a vacancy left by former Councillor David Cullen, in a move described by the city's mayor as an "unnecessary expense".

'Unnecessary' Ipswich by-election could cost ratepayers up to $550,000

Calling an election or referendum a waste of money is to be against democracy. Why do the media never challenge this

3 comments

zero_gravitas

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Calling an election or referendum a waste of money is to be against democracy.

Thing is, arguably, having a by-election is also kind of undemocratic. Ipswich council has mixed member electorates, so the first and second place candidates are elected, resulting in a more proportional result than single-member electorates. If they run a by-election, though, there's only one seat to fill, so the result could end up being less proportional (and more proportional means more democratic - in many people's thinking, anyway).

I'll give an illustrative example...

Say the original election results are (let's pretend preferential voting doesn't exist, or I guess that GREEN party preferences split exactly equally for BLUE and RED):

1st - 34% - BLUE party candidate

2nd - 33% - RED party candidate

3rd - 31% - GREEN party candidate

The result is that the ward is represented by one BLUE party councillor and one RED party councillor.

Now, if the RED party councillor resigns, in the by-election, if people vote exactly the same way as in the original election, the result is that the ward will be represented by two BLUE party councillors. That'd mean in this (very contrived) example, 34% of the vote would give BLUE 100% of the seats.

I can see why you'd argue that appointing the runner up (the GREEN candidate) also isn't democratic, but in this (very contrived) example, doing that would mean that 34% of the (primary) vote gives the BLUE party 50% of the seats, and the 31% of the vote gives the GREEN party 50% of the seats. So things would end up more proportional.

Like I say, though, that example is contrived to show that result. If we were to say that GREEN party voters strongly preference the RED party, then the RED party would win the by-election, and then the result would be almost exactly as proportional. If GREEN party voters strongly preference BLUE, though, then again, we're back at two BLUE councillors.

My point is that, depending on the situation, having a by-election for one seat in a two seat electorate may result in a less proportional/democratic result than simply appointing the runner-up.

That said, I think council elections tend to be less dominated by the bigger parties, with a lot more independents, and less of predictable, party-lines voting. So maybe that affects the likelihood of either option resulting in a more or less proportional outcome...

unionagainstdhmo

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That's interesting, but given that it is a two-seat electorate there might be multiple candidates from each party as well. They should probably have a by-election for both seats to be balanced

zero_gravitas

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there might be multiple candidates from each party as well

That's true, but I don't think multiple candidates would have any effect, in the contrived scenario above, on the result of either a by-election or the appointment of a runner-up.

If you modify it so that each candidate is instead a party ticket of two candidates (and assume people vote according to the party ticket), the result in the elections (original and one-seat by-election) would just be 1. BLUE, 2. RED, 3. GREEN, 4. BLUE, 5. RED, 6. GREEN. So the original election would still result in one BLUE, one RED, and the one-seat by-election would still result in two BLUE. And appointing the next runner-up would still be GREEN - I think!

I say 'I think' because I'm guessing they determine the next runner-up just by the final place results, in which case, yes, GREEN gets it. However, if they actually do a re-count of the ballots, except immediately excluding the resigning councillor - RED candidate #1 - then all of that candidates' preferences would flow to RED candidate #2 (again, this assumes that people voted according to the party tickets). The will of the voters - on that day, had RED candidate #1 been struck off the ballot - would be expressed, and the result would be exactly as proportional (in terms of party preference) as it was originally.

I'm guessing they don't do another count, though, because that would take time and money, and the option of appointing the next runner-up seems intended to be the no-spend, no-fuss option.

As an aside, if the process for a vacancy was running another count of the original ballots, it'd mean each ticket would probably want to run at least one more candidate than they expect to win, so that they'd have a backup candidate for preferences to flow to in the new count.

That'd look a little weird if your ticket expects to win all the seats in an electorate, because you'd be running more candidates than seats available. In Ipswich, because there's only two seats per ward, it's not out of the question that one ticket could realistically expect to win all seats (because they'd only need ~66% of the vote). In that situation it'd make sense to run a third candidate - one more than the seats available - in case their #1 or #2 candidate ends up vacating their seat before the next election.

They should probably have a by-election for both seats to be balanced

I think many would argue that kicking out a councillor and making them re-run, through no fault of theirs, is unfair. It forces councillors, who might be independents with limited resources (money, time, volunteers), to spend those resources on a whole extra election, when other councillors don't have to.

It also gives parties an even greater advantage over independents than usual. Parties can, for example, use all their volunteers from the other wards, or even neighboring council areas, to campaign in one single ward, instead of having to spread them across all councils and wards as they must when there is a full local government election on. This is actually an issue with by-elections in general, but it'd be more egregious if you were actually kicking out an independent, who was elected at a general local government election, for no fault of their own.