STV Petition Nears Target

Dunedin Mayor Sukhi Turner will tomorrow become the 4000th person to sign the Local Body Electoral Reform Referendum petition at 10.30am in the Mayor's office Tuesday 19th November. Ms Turner is one of a handful of city councillors who voted in favour of Single Transferable Voting. She is adamant STV is the fairest system to elect the city council, and feels Dunedin people should have the choice.

Dunedin, along with Banks Peninsula, is leading the country in a series of petitions demanding local councils give the choice of adopting STV or not, to voters. Christchurch and Palmerston North are the next closest with just over 50% of their targets collected.

The campaign has gained massive local support according to social justice campaigner and STV advocate Lyndon Weggery, "We are very pleased with the number of people who have signed so far, but we need 4200 valid signatures, and some of the ones we have collected are illegible or from people who are not currently on the electoral roll." The campaign aims to collect at least another 2000 signatures to ensure enough valid signatures are handed to the DCC at next month's deadline. "Local STV supporters will definitely not be resting in the 20 or so days remaining to collect signatures." said Mr Weggery. A petition stall can often be found outside the Public Library or can be electronically downloaded from either www.stvnz.org/stv-dunedin.htm or http://stvpetition.cjb.net.

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