paul mallett calls for an end to the dual voting rights afforded to some residents who can also secure a second vote as a business or corporate nominee in Tasmanian local government elections.  paul calls for an amendment to the Local Government Act (Sections 254-256) that makes dual voting rights possible through the establishment of a General Manager’s Roll in each municipality.

paul believes passionately in the democratic principle of “one vote, one value”. paul believes every individual’s vote should carry equal weight, regardless of their wealth, property ownership, or business interests. This is fundamental to representative democracy; the power to elect leaders shouldn’t be tied to property or corporate influence.

The current system gives some people more voting power than others. This is not fair. This is not just. paul believes it is wrong that a resident who is also a corporate nominee can vote twice in the same council election — once as a resident, once on behalf of a business. It is unjust because their neighbour — who doesn’t own a business — only has one vote. This means the corporate voter’s preferences count twice towards electing the same mayor or councillors.

paul is opposed to the current General Manager Roll system because it privileges property and capital over citizenship; it rewards financial power, not civic equality. Those without these financial resources can’t multiply their voting power no matter how active they are in the community.

Dual voting rights are highly inconsistent with a modern democracy, and reflects a time when property based voting gave extra political power to the wealthy. It dilutes equal representation. Elected representatives are meant to represent people, not just property. If business owners have extra votes, decisions may tilt towards commercial interests — which can sideline the interests of renters, low-income residents, or people with no property at all.

Morevoer it is inconsistent with the rules of other elections in our country. At the state and federal level in Australia, you cannot vote twice just because you own a business or extra land — your voting right is attached to citizenship and residence, not assets. Local government double voting breaks this principle.

Reflection

paul ran unsuccessfully in the 2009 Local Government Elections in the City of Launceston (see separate post). There were 45,376 electors enrolled to vote based on residence, and 470 from the General Manager’s roll as corporate nominees. It was not compulsory to vote at that election, and 24,608 votes were returned. There is no way of knowing how many of the 470 on the GM roll actually lodged two votes, but my guess is was a substantial number, and definitely a number higher than 3 (see how this matters below).

I share this because in the three way race for Mayor that year it was almost a dead heat. Rosemary Armitage (prior Deputy Mayor), Ted Sand (long term Councillor), and Albert van Zetten (incumbent Mayor) stood for the highest office in the City. Armitage secured 9,885 first preference votes for Mayor, Sand 3,589 votes, and van Zetten 10,366 votes. Given Sands was placed third, his votes were distributed to the other candidates as is the formal process to decide on the winner in Tasmania’s preferential voting system. 1,834 people who had voted for Sands, had Armitage as their next preference for Mayor. While 1,356 people who voted Sands had van Zetten as their next preference. The final result for the election of Mayor was, Armitage 11,719 votes, van Zetten 11,722 votes. van Zetten was re-elected by a razor thin margin of 3 votes.

Put another way, if as few as 2 people who voted for van Zetten had voted for Armitage, the result would have been reversed. What is unknowable is the number of people on the GM roll who voted for either Mayoral candidate. It is plausible that Armitage benefited from the GM roll, and got as close as she did to winning by virtue of the dual voting system. Equally plausible is the possibility that 2 or 3 dual voters out of the 470 additional votes from the GM roll turned the election in van Zetten’s favour. That is, people who had dual voting rights may have (mathematically at least) decided the race. As history will show, van Zetten went on to stand and win repeatedly for the next decade, ultimately serving as Mayor (uninterrupted) for another 13 years before retiring in 2022.  Armitage, who may have been Mayor for over a decade if she had won in 2009 (we will never know), pivoted from local government and used her experience and profile to win election in the State Parliament’s Legislative Council multiple times.