There are several types of dummy candidates. Some are ‘feeder’ candidates who collect preferences for a candidate with similar views. Of even greater concern are the ‘dishonest dummy’ candidates who stand on progressive, environmental, or appropriate development platforms, but direct their preferences to candidates with opposite views. They hijack our preferences for a candidate we would never have chosen. They not serious candidates, but worse than that, their candidate statement can mislead us into trusting their preferencing suggestions. Often it is not easy to determine where your preferences will end up. The dummy candidate’s preferences may go to three or four unknown minor candidates and other dummy candidates before ending up with a major candidate far down the ballot paper. Frequently dummy candidates are friends or relatives of the real candidates. Sometimes they are from the same political party but they do not declare their party links, standing as non-aligned independents and channelling votes to a candidate with links to the same party.
It is very hard to be absolutely certain who is a dummy candidate and who is not. How can we be sure if a candidate has no intention of winning? This makes it difficult to ‘name and shame’ dummies. However, here are some general guidelines. Typically dummy candidates nominate late, are difficult to contact, do not return questionnaires or attend forums, and do little or no campaigning. They often target a narrow segment of the voters – youth, elderly, a particular ethnic group – or a particular issue. This is unlike genuine candidates who are usually trying to appeal to a broad cross-section of voters. Not all of those who are unresponsive are dummies, but even if some are not dummies, do we want councillors who are unresponsive even while trying to win our votes?
One useful way of understanding how sincere candidates are about their policies is to see what they do with their preferences. Generally there are clusters of candidates who have agreed to preference each other. Their action in choosing who to preference often gives a better indication of their allegiances than their candidate statement.
The chart below is from the 2012 election. It divides each ward into the three main preference clusters. [click chart to enlarge] We will bring you updates as we find out more about the preferencing of the candidates from 2020.
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| Candidate's groupings based on preferences – Click to enlarge |
