New system for Waimairi elections

Press, 11 June 1982, Page 4

New system for Waimairi elections

Electors will be able to vote for candidates who-do not have specific ridings in the 1983 ■ WaimSiri District Council election. .A special meeting of the council last evening adopted a system .that allows for 13 councillors as at present, but for the first time, electors will be able to vote for representatives in their own' riding and for an unspecified number who represent no particular riding. The more controversial questions of where the riding boundaries will be drawn and how many ridings will be constituted were deferred

until another special meeting on July 1. A council co-ordinating committee has considered the options open to the council., and has put forward three suggestions, although the meeting on July 1 will not be bound by them. / The first option would see a council elected on a basis of one member for each of the nine ridings (with altered boundaries), and four councillors elected by the district as a whole. The second option would see the number of ridings reduced to six, with four ridings having two members,

two ridings with one member. and three councillors elected by the district. A third option would have four ridings, two of them with two members, one with three members, one with four members, and two members elected by the district. Whatever proposal is adopted, the co-ordinating committee has recommended that the 1983 election be held by .postal vote. At the 1980 local-body elections,. Paparua and Riccarton electors voted by post. Other local bodies used polling booths.