Kāpiti Coast District Council have recently decided to continue with the practice of listing candidates alphabetically on voting papers rather than following most other councils who have decided it was fairer to have candidates listed in random order. The Ministry of Justice figures support the view that alphabetical listing favours those with surnames early in the alphabet. Not surprisingly those who voted for the alphabetical listing included Cr Ammundsen, Bell, Cardiff, Church, and Gaylor.
We have had the following satirical piece submitted which gives more details of where this might lead.
Kāpiti Ratepayers have been warned about the Cognitive function disease sweeping the district, Alphabetotbia.
Mayor ‘Ross Church’ has announced with immediate effect that all meeting agendas will be alphabetized
“Council Staff & Councilors have noted the confusion caused to the residents of Kāpiti by the presentation of items not presented in alphabetical order” , stating “We had previously just thought they were all ‘THICK’, but now the results are in from the 12 year $800,000 Ratepayer funded survey, & we have discovered the problem.”
“Along with advice from our very expensive lawyers, Mid central Health, The Electoral Commission & the Better Drugs For Better Decision Making Co-operative (who we consult prior to all meetings, obviously), we have therefore decided for the benefit of the whole district that it is better to give up Democracy rather than
put our Ratepayers at further risk of the spread of this unfortunate ailment.
Please Note , that these decisions have been made for the good of the district, by us as we know best & as we are not accountable for our actions no further correspondence will be entered into!!!”
“Council Staff will be manning a 24hr Helpline and Helpful hints are posted on our website, including suggestions like, When going shopping make your list out in alphabetical order to save on Stress & Confusion” & “ensure you visit
Countdown first, followed by New world then Pack n save”
“Our hope is that one day we can overcome this Pandemic & Kāpiti Coast Phenomena, so we are planning an advertising campaign to try and attract intelligent people to the Coast, but this is unlikely to have any effect until the current A, B , C Cartel is broken.”