But, you may find that you’re left with many more questions, like, why is there a person contesting my ward and more than 100 others?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We filtered the candidates list down to 53,400 individuals and found that most of them (68% or 36,000) are standing in only one ward. Another 31% (or 16,600) are standing in between two and nine wards, and 486 are standing in between 10 and 19 wards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rest, who are running in 20 or more wards, are shown in the chart below. Eight people are standing in more than 100 wards \u2013 none of them are in the ANC, DA or EFF, in case you were wondering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/editor.mediahack.co.za\/theoutlier\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/10\/candidates-running-in-20-wards-600x377.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nWhy do candidates run in multiple wards? It’s all about proportional representation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jodi Allemeir explained this phenomenon in an article originally published on Medium<\/a> for Open Cities Lab. She’s kindly allowed us to use an excerpt:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Metropolitan Municipalities, Council is made up of two types of councillors. These are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n a) Ward Councillors<\/p>\n\n\n\n b) Proportional Representation Councillors (also known as PR Councillors).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ward Councillors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ward Councillors are elected by the residents living in the ward on a \u201cwinner takes all\u201d basis. This means that the Councillor with the most votes wins the seat. Candidates don\u2019t need to belong to a political party to run to be the Ward Councillor. This is why you will see \u201cindependent candidates\u201d running in your ward, and why on your ward ballot, you vote for a person by their name, not their party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anybody can register and appear on the ballot as an Independent candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, due to the way in which Proportional Representation is counted … some candidates belonging to political parties will run in several wards \u2014 the purpose of this strategy is to gain votes for their party to gain more proportional representation seats in Council…<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, Jodi goes on to explain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n …Your ward vote is used to determine your ward councillor, and if you vote for a councillor who also belongs to a party, that gets added to a party vote towards proportional representation, too (unless the candidate has won the ward, in which case the votes are not added to the PR calculation as that party has already won a full seat in council for those votes).<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is why some members of parties stand for ward councillor in several wards. They have no intention of winning or serving in those wards \u2014 they\u2019re just collecting all those extra points running through the maze of lost voters (or voters wise to the game, and donating their ward vote to the PR tally of the party they believe will best represent them on policy issues).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/editor.mediahack.co.za\/theoutlier\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2021\/10\/Age-of-councillors-contesting-5-600x600.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n