Many councils are trialling a scheme devised by ex-professor Karl Jugler, until recently a university man highly regarded in the world of statistics.
In an interview exclusive to this column and the Greyhound Gazette the professor gave the background to his innovative approach to the election process.
"The university told me they had to let me go as I spent most of my time devising the odds for the TAB and this, according to the dinosaurs on the university council, was not a core academic activity. Totally out of touch those people and I was glad to see the back of them. Since then I’ve been working on what I hope will be my greatest legacy, the Jugler VoterGraph™."
"VoterGraph™?"
"Yes, I’ve registered the name and with luck it’ll be up there with the Gallup Poll when the conversation turns to elections. The problem has always been that we know something of the candidates but nothing of the voters and, after all, democracy is a two-way street, isn’t it? In fact, I’m not too sure we know enough about the candidates, either."
"Surely, those pamphlets and full-page ads tell us all we need to know about those people?"
"No, not really. Those self-written biographies are next to useless. Every candidate comes across as a mix of Mother Teresa and Santa Claus. No-one mentions their penchant for violence or the times they creamed piles of cash off the company they were working for."
"That’s hardly relevant. City councillors have few opportunities for violence around the council table or of theft from the rates barrel."
"True. True. But it would be nice to know about it. However, you want to know about VoterGraph™. It’s designed to tell us more about the voter and thus be able to assess the worth of their particular vote. Here’s the list of VoterGraph™ questions which will be added to the voting papers.
● Did you study closely the reasons for choosing the candidates you voted for?
● Did you vote only for candidates you know personally?
● Did you simply choose candidates based on a liking for their first names, hairstyle or some other personal attribute?
● Did you tick names entirely at random?
● Did you treat the election as a joke and vote for a candidate making a mockery of the process. (e.g. a representative of the Silly Hat Party etc).
These answers are fed into the computer along with the completed voting paper and the VoterGraph™ programme does the rest."
"What does it actually do?"
"It’s a bit complicated for a layman like yourself so perhaps a hypothetical case will help. Let’s say you voted for Joe Bloggs on the basis outlined in question one. The vote is then given a score of 10. If your vote reflected question 2 you get 3 points. Personal knowledge is such a rare thing in politics that it deserves to be rewarded. If you voted along the lines of question 3, then the score is 2. If you voted completely randomly then the score is 0. Equally, your vote wasted on the Silly Hat Party is also rated 0.
The programme then adds the scores across all voting papers and we end up with a total which gives with pinpoint accuracy the names of the candidates the most diligent voters preferred over all the no-hopers who appear on the ballot paper. It eliminates the possibly of someone called say, "Trump" being elected solely because the name rang a bell in so many heads at voting time. A "Jacinda" in the list might also win or lose votes simply based on the name, rather than the candidate’s policies. Using VoterGraph™ we emerge with a council chosen with some care by people who take their democratic obligations seriously."
"I notice that voters are not required to give details of their own vices."
"They wouldn’t give them, would they? And I guess being a hot head or recreational user of some banned substance won’t greatly affect your political acumen."
"What are your long-term hopes for VoterGraph™? Will it produce a city council which lowers rates, provides ample parking and prevents flooding in low-lying areas?"
"Ha! Ha! You must be joking. To get to that happy state we’d need a miracle. And not even VoterGraph™ can change water into wine, if you know what I mean."
"So, in spite of VoterGraph™, at election time it’s a matter of ‘God help us all?"’
"Exactly."
■ Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
