Interesting story on Close Up tonight, about the lack of interest in local body elections. “Boring” was the general consensus.
I couldn’t agree more. I have no idea about any of the candidates for the Auckland mayoralty, other than the current encumbent and the previous. Neither of whom I have any interest in voting for. Oh yeah, and the guy who started that horrible excuse for gratuitous nudity on Auckland’s Queen street. Skanks-on-bikes, or whatever it’s called.
The other half dozen or more candidates are unknowns. The paragraph on each person in the voting documents, is hardly enough to make a decision on who should be running the city for the next few years.
It seems to me, there’s an easy, web-based answer to fix a lack of interest in local-body elections. How about a simple form which asks a bunch of questions about relevant topics and, based on the answers given, presents the list of candidates who match the recipient’s answers. Questions like:
Would you increase rates to build more parks: Yes/No/Undecided
Do you believe rates are being used properly in [some area]: Yes/No
Which are do you think the council should focus on for the next term: [topic 1], [topic 2], [topic 3], [topic 4]…
Rank these issues in order of importance: [topic 1], [topic 2], [topic 3], [topic 4], [topic 5]…
etc
There could be a 2 minute form (short list of questions), 5 minute and 10 minute form (long list of questions), depending upon how much effort you wanted to put into your selection. The list of candidates at the end would be sorted by the percentage match to the recipient’s answers, and contain links to more information about their candidacy. It’s just a quick jump from there to adding online voting. Tick boxes next to the candidates in your list who you want to vote for.
Doesn’t seem like rocket science, and wouldn’t necessarily have to cost as much money as the Government throws into other projects. And at least there’d be more chance I’ll be choosing the right set of candidates, based on what I think is important. At the moment, I’ve got no idea.
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