electoral systems

Categories under electoral systems

Understanding the New Zealand General Election 2023: Historical trends and perspectives.

Written By: - Date published: 6:01 am, September 20th, 2023 - 15 comments

From the outside, the New Zealand 2023 General Election seems both lacklustre and slightly strange. The Labour Government, having won a huge majority in 2020 is now fighting for its political life. Yet National, the main centre-right opposition party is still on average polling significantly worse now than they were when it lost power in 2017.

NZ history of voting systems in elections

Written By: - Date published: 12:46 pm, May 13th, 2023 - 33 comments

A guest post by Seddonville Miner outlining the history of voting rights in New Zealand and how Christopher Luxon’s recent claims about our voting system are hopelessly incorrect.

UK Labour – can they finally beat the Tories?

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, January 30th, 2023 - 18 comments

The left in the UK needs to accept they alone do not have majority support and need to work with what they term the “soft left” and more centrist factions to win. The current Labour leadership need to ensure that the left still has a stake in Labour winning, and give enough to motivate the left to vote and campaign for Labour. Look at the lessons learnt by the US Democrats.

Luxon blunders again

Written By: - Date published: 2:38 pm, January 26th, 2023 - 25 comments

Chris Luxon has provided another example of his ineptness by suggesting in an MMP environment that a vote in a Maori Seat is worth more than a vote in an European seat.

Why stick more fingers in the donations dyke?

Written By: - Date published: 9:50 pm, August 1st, 2022 - 13 comments

The latest attempt to construct a sensible political donations regime will likely again prove to be full of holes. Going back to basics would be much better. The good news is that the basics were comprehensively assessed 36 years ago by the 1986 Royal Commission on Electoral Reform. It recommended state funding.

Political donations law needs reform

Written By: - Date published: 2:44 pm, August 1st, 2022 - 7 comments

Judge Jagose’s decision to acquit two persons linked to New Zealand First charged with obtaining control over $750,000 has opened up rather large holes in the obligations of political parties to report donations.

Early voting opens in Aussie election

Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, May 11th, 2022 - 33 comments

The early voting polls have opened in Australia, so the election there is nigh. Reading on the election there has been interesting. The weirdness of marginal seats. The burgeoning dissatisfaction and probable deciding impact of Aussie women on this election result.

What the recent elections tell us about British society

Written By: - Date published: 11:31 pm, May 17th, 2021 - 35 comments

Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s Blog In a nation that has suffered over 100,000 COVID-19 deaths, one may be somewhat taken aback to see the latest YouGov Poll where The Conservative Party enjoy a 15% lead over the Labour Opposition. 17 months after the Conservatives won the 2019 General Election, it would be easy to […]

Donations trouble for Māori Party and National

Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, April 13th, 2021 - 14 comments

The Electoral laws about donations are pretty clear.  Receive a donation over $30,000 and you should tell the Electoral Commission about the report within the next ten working days.  But the Maori Party and the National Party have both managed to recently breach this simple requirement.

Trump loses the presidency, but Trumpism lives on

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 am, November 19th, 2020 - 8 comments

The reality is that the United States is a poor example of a functioning democracy in 2020.

NZ election 2020: Labour win is a watershed moment in the country’s history

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 am, October 20th, 2020 - 47 comments

The 2020 election was more than just a victory for Labour and more than a crushing defeat for the National Party (New Zealand’s main centre-right political party). This result marks a significant watershed in New Zealand politics which will likely have implications long after this parliamentary term.

Left/Green/Indigenous

Written By: - Date published: 12:32 pm, October 18th, 2020 - 135 comments

What kind of government might New Zealand have?

Your Preliminary Parliament for 2020

Written By: - Date published: 2:33 am, October 18th, 2020 - 58 comments

On the preliminary results, we have our expected MPs. While Parliament may change a little, we now know its shape, and its likely members- with about three exceptions.

Pollwatch: August Roy Morgan poll, reported 1st September 2020

Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, September 2nd, 2020 - 30 comments

A trend of 2020 polling results

Pollwatch returns, with a Labour majority government no longer a complete certainty, and with another poor result for National.

Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Government: Style over substance or a guiding light for progressive politics?

Written By: - Date published: 8:42 am, August 10th, 2020 - 33 comments

Critics have dismissed the Jacinda Ardern government as being one of style over substance. This is unfair given the challenges this government has faced and the policy achievements it has had. However, it is a government that has much work to do if it wins a second term. And its over-reliance on Jacinda as party leader is a huge strategic risk, especially when the governments front bench is perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be lightweight.

July 2020 Roy Morgan Poll

Written By: - Date published: 7:11 pm, August 8th, 2020 - 45 comments

The latest Roy Morgan poll is out.

Crusher?

Crushed!

The test of MMP

Written By: - Date published: 12:20 pm, August 5th, 2020 - 123 comments

With the left’s political fortunes having changed greatly in the past three years, and with more change on the way, does the left still want MMP?

Strategic voting is a bad thing unless you live in Epsom

Written By: - Date published: 7:42 am, July 30th, 2020 - 49 comments

Nick Smith has publicly opposed a change to the electoral system that would allow strategic manipulation of the electoral system.  But only by Māori.

UMR’s bombshell poll result

Written By: - Date published: 11:41 am, May 1st, 2020 - 142 comments

A leaked UMR poll result puts National on 29%.

National seeks delay to election

Written By: - Date published: 7:38 am, April 9th, 2020 - 120 comments

Hot on the news that National’s polling has plunged to 35% Paula Bennett has publicly suggested that the election should be delayed. I wonder if they are related?

National is going low on law and order issues

Written By: - Date published: 7:48 am, February 27th, 2020 - 10 comments

Over the past week National has shown a willingness to take really base aggressive positions on law and order issues for political advantages no matter what principles are at stake.  And at the same time show a complete lack of understanding of the issues that are involved.

Postal voting – essentially dead

Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, February 25th, 2020 - 62 comments

Stuff has an article up about last years local body elections in Auckland. As usual  the interesting parts are at the end. But I have to reiterate – online voting isn’t the answer. As a programmer, I’d just call it stupid and dangerous.

Sustainable NZ not so sustainable after all

Written By: - Date published: 2:42 pm, February 21st, 2020 - 23 comments

It appears that National’s dream of an alternative Green party that would drive the real Green Party below the threshold is in tatters with news that Sustainable NZ is on the skids.

National’s donation reporting problem

Written By: - Date published: 7:19 am, February 19th, 2020 - 25 comments

National’s recent donations returns suggest that a large total of their donations are made in the under $15,000 category, the benefit of which is that the donor’s identity does not have to be disclosed.  Update: The four accused have been named.

Will DPF condemn National for hiding the identity of its donors?

Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, February 11th, 2020 - 59 comments

David Farrar has called for the suspension of Winston Peters from Cabinet for reasons which would also justify the suspension of Simon Bridges from the National Party.

Why UK Labour lost? Part 2: UK Labour’s Strange loyalty to First Past the Post.

Written By: - Date published: 2:56 am, January 13th, 2020 - 13 comments

Originally posted on Nick Kelly’s Blog

MMP Mark II*

Written By: - Date published: 11:57 pm, December 25th, 2019 - 24 comments

What beats MMP? Open-list proportional representation with a low threshold would be a good option.

The British Election result 2019

Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, December 20th, 2019 - 21 comments

Democracy is a precious thing, and not something that can be taken for granted. Having an electoral system where every vote matters is crucial to creating a decent society. It is time that the UK started seriously debating electoral reform and how to improve its democratic systems.

The freedom to lie during an election campaign

Written By: - Date published: 6:55 am, December 11th, 2019 - 75 comments

Two recent National advertisements involving drastically inaccurate graphics have attracted attention.  And at the same time National is opposing changes to the Electoral Law that would extend the time that it is an offence to publish a false and misleading advertisement during an election period.

The folly of electoral pacts

Written By: - Date published: 2:15 am, November 30th, 2019 - 2 comments

Originally posted  Nick Kelly’s blog One feature of the UK election has been various electoral alliances or deals done. This has mostly occurred around the issue of Brexit. Early on in the campaign I wrote about Trump’s intervention in the UK election, specifically him calling on The Brexit Party and The Conservatives to do a deal. […]

Bridges calls for investigation into National’s handling of electoral donations

Written By: - Date published: 9:29 am, November 29th, 2019 - 24 comments

Simon Bridges’ demand of an investigation into the New Zealand First Foundation appears to have backfired after it emerges that the NZ First Foundation was modelled on the National Party Foundation.

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