We had a family voting session this evening. Between us we could just about muster enough personal knowledge of candidates to get through the Council voting with confidence, but even drawing heavily on the candidate profile booklet I feel cheapened by the few votes cast for DHB and Regional Council candidates.

There is no reliable media coverage of the performance of individuals on those bodies. One only hears accidentally about who are the passengers on those bodies, or even the nutters.

There is something deeply wrong with a system that pretends there is value in votes cast for or against people of whom one has never heard, or if you have heard, of whom you have no recollection whether it was favourably or otherwise. Yet I suspect that I would be among those most likely to know or to have heard of candidates.

The money spent on encouraging low grade votes in local authority elections is even more wasted than money spent for the purpose in central government elections.

We are lucky nevertheless in Wellington's Lambton Ward. There are enough high calibre candidates to cast at least three votes without regret. Ian McKinnon was obvious, and John Bishop and Adam Cunningham have both impressed me in candidate presentations. I know John and believe he would make a good councillor. I've heard similar praise for Adam.

If they had not been there I might even have cast a vote for Iona Pannett, just as a thank you for sticking up for dog owners. But the risk of impoverishing ourselves with nutty Green sentiment for  trains ('light rail') ruled it out.