Five required for group vote

Candidates who form a group of at least five people for this year's council elections will be entitled to receive votes "above the line", according to the State Electoral Commission.

However the Electoral Office will no longer accept group voting tickets lodged by groups.

This year a voter who chooses to vote "above the line" for only one group, simply puts the number one in that group's square.

That will give preferences to each candidate in that group only and the vote stops there.

If the voter wishes to vote above the line for three groups, he or she writes the numbers one, two and three in the squares of those groups.

By doing that, the voter will have given preferences to the candidates in the first group, then to candidates in the second group and then to the third.

So if there were six candidates in each group, by voting one, two and three in group squares, the voter has given preferences to 18 candidates.

The number of groups a voter wishes to vote for above the line is entirely up to the voter.

If a voter does not want to vote above the line, he or she can still give preferences to individual candidates in any order.

However, they must show preferences for at least half the number of candidates to be elected.

The direction on the ballot paper will be to show preferences at least equal to the number to be elected.

However, the legislation provides that a ballot paper will still be formal if it shows only half the minimum number of preferences required by the directions.

Website, January 22