By DAVID SCHOUT and CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
IN an interesting what-if, Greater Dandenong mayor Angela Long would not have been elected as councillor under a first-past-the-post system in last month’s council elections.
On first-preference votes alone, Cr Long was placed fourth in the three-councillor ward, trailing unsuccessful candidate Jill Walsh. But under the preferential voting system, Cr Long enjoyed a better flow of No. 2 votes than Ms Walsh to edge ahead.
Other results in the Greater Dandenong election would not have been affected.
Ken Coghill, director of Monash University’s governance research unit, said the preferential voting system best reflected the electorate’s intentions.
He said those voted out despite a swag of No. 1 votes showed that “more than half the electorate didn’t want them as councillor.”
“If someone does not have the majority of the vote then they should not be elected . . . it would not be representative of the constituent.”
He said the downside of preferential voting was “a lot of people don’t understand how the system operates”.
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