I agree with @kumararepublic.bsky.social's #InternetNZ guide, but there is a SIGNIFICANT RISK of splitting the progressive vote while FSU will be focused on their 2 candidates We also need to focus I will be voting @dylanreeve.com & Hunt for 1 & 2, & then ranking *all other candidates* except FSU
Yes to Dylan Reeve. I have spoken with Hunt in person and am less impressed. I would also like to support MΔori tech candidates Peter-Lucas Jones and Kaye-Maree Dunn. And I rate Bianca Grizhar too. I haven't finalized my #InternetNZ votes so these thoughts are an indication not a commitment
I've heard good things about Biana, but I worry that she may sit too on the "idealist" side of the spectrum when what INZ needs are pragmatic progressives who understand the problems it faces and can find reasonable compromises.
Ae. I appreciate that Adam Hunt's harder edged knowledge and skills may be very much what #InternetNZ needs in current times. I also try to look at big picture and I'm in Due Diligence phase of considering my votes. This on Hunt is useful clavis.nz/about-adam-h...
Ooops, sorry. Bianca. Perils of trying to do too many things at once. π’
I'm still listening to oral submissions on #RSB while I type. Busy lives.
Totally agree around ranking MΔori candidates highly However it was also pointed out to me that with the obligations around Te Tiriti knowledge & MΔori governance experience the board will be obligated to pull that experience in via appointed board members if it is not fulfilled via elected members
Good point.
There shouldn't be much vote splitting from STV voting system used by InternetNZ
Thank you for this essential corrective to the usual "rank all it's fine" STV voting guidance (which is accurate for single-member elections, of which is is not one)
It's fine as practical advice, but STV systems certainly obey later no-harm criteria and this is evident from the algorithm, which only considers a preference once the fate of all higher candidates has been decided. www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE3/P5.HTM
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#InternetNZ 's voting procedure is a little complex as it involves reallocating votes from both winning candidates (if they more than the minimum threshold required to win) as well as votes from defeated candidates to each voter's next ranked preference. internetnz.nz/governance-a...
I must admit I laughed out loud when I saw how complex the algo was. How could it not be. But presumably if you rank all the β candidates there will be enough?
I would rate anyone you find at all palatable rather than just ones you really like. But definitely leave off anyone horrendous.
This means that it is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL that any voting #InternetNZ members who want to give our candidates the best chance of defeating the FSU candidates we need to rank the same Top 2. And, after many discussions, I think our best bets are @dylanreeve.com & Adam Hunt. #kikorangi
I don't think it's true. It's not "most votes takes the round", it's "most votes & over the threshold, determined by number of total votes/seats takes the round". Which isn't really vulnerable to vote splitting, as long as you don't rank the Bad Candidates.
But "as long as you don't rank the Bad Candidates" is the important point, unlike single-member preferential elections where you can rank bad candidates at low risk, in this case that risk is higher
Conventional low-risk vote would be to rank all, incl Bads in Reverse Badness so that even if one of them gets up, it will be the Least Bad. But here that's a risk if there is insufficient coordination among the Goods (which is plausible because the Goods are real electors, not brute-force entryism)
It's not a risk to rank someone low no matter what other voters do. Your low ranks are not even looked at unless some combination of the following two things happens in respect of *all* the people you ranked higher: * they have already been elected * they have been excluded and cannot win
The political science risk to "rank all" messaging isn't about people being elected whom you oppose because of your rankings, it's "if we encourage people to rank all, this will discourage some people from voting because they feel it's too complicated and they don't know enough to rank everyone".
Sure, my own personal preference is more of a principles issue where I want to ensure that there is no situation where my vote could be counted in favor of certain candidates.
Don't worry, this isn't your fault, we know you voted for Kodos :-)
Vote splitting in this scenario is: I rank three people who aren't the "bad candidates", and leave both leave five acceptable but less great candidates and the bad candidates unranked. Someone who agrees with me on the "bad candidates" ranks three of the five I thought acceptable, but not my greats.
Yep, that is part of my understanding of issues that have happened in past votes.
But also I felt there is a lack of specific endorsements in this INZ election and I felt the need to make some. As the issue isn't just about defeating the FSU but also ensuring we're setup to solve some of the more systemic problems INZ faces (which have helped make it vulnerable to FSU takeover).
Yeah, one benefit to STV is that you don't have to worry about splitting the ballot. I think as long as people are ranking mostly the same people highly, it shouldn't matter what order they are in. Unless I'm missing something huge here?
My understanding is there have been problems in the past with folks only ranking a couple candidates which risks votes being exhausting and the threshold lowered. So I agree that its more important to rank all candidates that are palatable than specific order.
The other part is to leave the people you absolutely don't want off your ballot. DO NOT RANK THEM AT ALL. That way, if your higher-ranked candidates are eliminated, there is no chance your vote gets transferred to your hated candidate(s). Step 7: internetnz.nz/governance-a...
There are some technical free-riding exploits that remain even for the very good STV counting method used here, but they'd be very marginal for this election due to its characteristics. Rank all candidates updated to FSU. (and no harm or benefit really to whether you keep going to till last)
See the "go to step 7" logic in step 3.
Or, more specifically, as long as you rank ALL candidates aside from the bad ones.
If there's a set of two or more candidates where your block ranks all of them higher than all of the other candidates, and your block has at least two-thirds of the vote, two of your candidates win. (I think) notstatschat.rbind.io/2025/07/10/s...
the article appears correct, I believe the tweet summary should say "more than" rather than "at least", which I think could see a tie :-)
TELL ME HOW TO DEFEAT CUOMO KEITH
the secret to winning a STV election is to have more votes you're welcome my consultancy invoice is in the mail
It's vulnerable to vote splitting if people get picky and don't express enough preferences, leading to their vote exhausting.
Its also vulnerable to small manipulations ("Hylland Free Riding") if voters are able to identify that their preferred candidate will be easily elected, and focus their top preferences on more marginal candidates so other peoples' votes are made to do the work of electing that preferred candidate.
i.e. you can take away the power of other voters' lower preferences, where you agree with their top preferences but disagree on lower preferences. Bit too obscure for practical advice in an election like this though.
What does this #InternetNZ voting recommendation mean in practice? When it comes to vote they will give you a list of all of the candidates in random order. Rank @dylanreeve.com 1 & Adam Hunt 2, and then rank all of the remaining candidates according to your preference.
If you do not rank all remaining candidates and all of the candidates you did rank are defeated, your ballot will be considered "exhausted" which removes it from the pool and reduces the threshold required for another candidate to "win" election.
So we are strongly incentivised to rank any candidate you find even the least bit palatable. Personally I will not be ranking Neilson, Brown, or Ayling as I would rather my vote be exhausted than be counted in their favour. #InternetNZ
THANK YOU!!!
Thanks for sound advice!
Yes, remember that if your first choice gets more than 50% of the votes cast then a portion of your single vote passes on down your list and can help a 2nd candidate get elected
Who is the preferred Female candidate please?
π Okay, yes, I am reading their profiles and can see who stands out for me π
Grizhar?
Happy to hear your insights π
I have not looked at it closely enough yet to have any
Kaye-Maree Dunn
Suzie is my favourite. Her response on slack and her answers to questions are so insightful and grounded. She's in my top 3.
Thanks for this info
Saw another post saying itβs best to not rank those you donβt want. Thoughts on that?
Hard agree. But only for those you REALLY don't want. bsky.app/profile/jpda...
That's my take too. But I can how some might want to still rank the undesirable candidates, to have influence (if it came to that) on the least worst candidate(s) getting in.
Is there a good write up or example of how we can end up splitting the vote with STV? I tried reading a few thing but donβt really follow how that would happen
bsky.app/profile/jpda...
Ah. So if everyone anti FSU ranked all the vaguely decent candidates, then consistently picking the same first 2 doesnβt matter. But assuming a bunch of of folks only rank 2 or 3 people, then it matters a lot.
Theoretically. But I am being a bit conservative by suggesting we err on the side of consolidation given the risks.
The risk of consolidation is that people will consolidate around different sets of two or three candidates and then the people you really don't want come through the middle. By all means argue for a common top few but RANK EVERYONE YOU DO NOT ACTIVELY DISLIKE
Yep, there was a bit of a vacuum in terms of coordination that I am (poorly) attempting to fill.
Yep. By all means. But your message above re coalescing around "just a few" candidates is risky. Different people will coalesce in different ways. Pushing for "safe hands" only would essentially eliminate any diverse candidates The winning strategy is to rank **everyone** you see as viable.
Oh yeah. Rank everyone remotely viable. I'm just expressing my recommendations. π
Will it work? Who knows! FSU might have the numbers to make our push moot; they certainly seem to think so! But I'd rather put in the effort and fail than not have tried at all.
Well, you already have to have put in the effort to join in the first place, so you should absolutely make the most of it.
But basically, if more people bullet-vote (only give a 1), the election starts to take on the properities of a plurality election.
In a multi-winner-election, STV starts to move towards the properties of "Single Non Transferable Vote", i.e. the voting system where everyone votes for one candidate and the N candidates with the most votes are elected. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_...
There's a wealth of information from the instant-runoff elections (single-winner STV) in Australia, due to the mix of rules between states, especially compulsory preferences vs optional preferences, and the big impact it has on the strength of preference flows. Queensland vs other state elections
The fact that this is multi-winner STV doesn't really impact the vote-splitting issue except that with multiple winners your very deep preferences matter less. With only two winners here, it's in many senses closer to a single-winner election than to a complex many-winner STV election.
@drdrehistorian.bsky.social Is there a quick-and-dirty outline of the impact of optional preferences in Queensland? I feel it's well-traversed territory.
btw NSW is the main OPV state now. We implemented it about a decade before QLD, and QLD dropped OPV prior to the 2017 election. NSWEC also has vastly more preference data than any other single-member election because they scan all the ballots.
Afraid Iβm not sure but @benraue.com, @kevinbonham.bsky.social, or @chrissalisbury.bsky.social might have suggestions on pieces (or have their own to link!) about the effects of preferences exhausting under OPV (and OPV isnβt just Qld but they are notable for multiple CPV/OPV shifts)
so the relative importance of preferences vis a vis first preference (primary) votes reduces as you increase the magnitude. For an M21 NSW Legislative Council election, almost all seats are decided on primary votes. But for an M1 election the quota is 50%, so preferences are more likely to matter.
M2 in that sense is quite a lot more like a single-member election than a properly proportional election (say M5+). With a quota of 33%, if you have two similarly-sized groups, they'll each win a seat and it's game over. But if it's not like that, preferences can matter a lot.
In terms of vote-splitting, it mostly matters if people don't number preferences (at least those of the viable candidates). Of course in a non-partisan election it can be harder to tell who is viable or what the 'sides' are. On longer ballots, voters will often not number all the boxes.
there is also the fact that no candidate's voters mark their preferences unanimously. There will always be some leakage. Having fewer candidates could fix that, but maybe some of those voters would just vote for the other side if their preferred candidate didn't run.
In theory you can have issues with a candidate who would do better on the final count getting knocked out earlier, and thus a voter could be strategic by preferencing higher the person who is likely to get more preferences.
Yes indeed. We do have local elections coming up. An election ago I estimated that in my local authority, with magnitude 14 and Meek's method spitting a very easy breakdown of how your vote gets split ("keep values"), it's likely that if my preferences had run through 13 winners and been in play...
for the last round of counting, the remaining part of my vote contributing to the outcome would have been, I can't remember if it was a millionth or a billionth of my full vote. So deep preferences really are irrelevant. Yet of course everyone wants to rank someone last and that's emotionally fair.
What election are we talking about here?
This is the InternetNZ board election, which has been a source of controversy as the "Free Speech Union" has tried to stack the board so that they can promote their far-right agenda. There has been a countermovement of progressive BlueSkyNZers becoming InternetNZ members.
aha. I suspected it was an NZ local govt election. Yes I have some thoughts.
Aus upper houses are more analogous to the situation youβre looking at: multi-winner with prefs optional after a certain point (eg Senate only mandates 1β6) The best advice is *aways* preference as far as you feel able, and ideally all the way in case last seat is least fav vs 2nd least fav
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