Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, November 1st, 2008 - 101 comments
Categories: election 2008, progressives, vote smart -
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Last election, 7,000 people gave their votes to very small left-wing parties that never had any chance of winning a seat in Parliament. That’s 0.3% of the vote; a small but not insignificant amount. If those votes to the Alliance and Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis had gone to the Greens instead (who, after all, have 99% of their policies in common), the Greens would have won another seat.
This election, there are two more micro left wing parties – the Workers’ Party and the Residents Action Movement. Two parties with, as far as I can tell, identical policies and ideology that sit comfortably within the ideals of the Greens and Labour, just more extreme, but have no hope of getting elected (RAM came last or nearly last among the organised candidate blocs in every local council election that it contested last year).
I have a lot of sympathy for these parties and their policies. It is important to have groups that pulling the political spectrum left. But that is no reason for voters to waste their votes on them.
Last election, the micro parties and the Progressive took a combined 33,000 votes, each one of them wasted when they could have been contributing to more seats for the Left. If that happens again, it may be the difference between keeping the Left in power and a National-led government. Which leads to a sad but inescapable conclusion – voting for a micro party rather than a party that will return to Parliament is like voting for a National-led government.
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Let me put it this way:
Suppose we have 50 people vote for labour, and 60 for national, out of 150 votes. We will get the same result as if 5 people voted for labour, and 6 for national out of 15 votes. I assume you can accept that easily enough.
Well, what if Labour gets 5 votes and national gets 6, but labour gets allocated 45 “wasted” votes and national gets allocated 54? Why, we get the same result. That’s effectively how the MMP seats allocation algorithm works.
Sure, it’s not as good as if an extra ten people voted for Labour, but it’s also not as bad as if those ten voted for National.
That will work if there only two parties that got elected.but it is not so simple if a manner of minor parties are also be given reallocated votes. What if a minor party – say the Greens – was 30 votes short of an extra seat – and National were 1500 votes short of an extra seat -the reallocation would be proportionately fair but the left will be more likely to get an extra seat because – so Chris G can understand – its initial party votes were just short of getting an extra seat than Nationals and such a party will benefit more from extra votes.
ah your talking reallocation of seats via mmp. well thanks but we digress, mind.
Dave- It’s almost impossible to tell ahead of time who’d most benefit from the redistribution, but the race has to be REALLY close- and I mean within a seat or two- for it to matter. I’d say it looks increasingly like the deciding factor will be who the Maori Party favours, and whether NZF gets in.
ondine green,
Not so.
There is nothing stopping you voting for the maori party, which roll you’re on is not an issue.
I’d say it looks increasingly like the deciding factor will be who the Maori Party favours, and whether NZF gets in.
True, but wouldn’t it be funny if the wasted vote was 25% and the Maori Party got enough reallocated votes to reduce the overhang….
Interesting discussion,
I can’t vote yet so all I can do is try to influence voters with as much info as I can spread.
In my quest to learn about the NZ system I found only one party who would actually really change the system radically yet it’s on the fringe of the spectrum.
That’s probably because they point out that our imploding financial system is a fraud and the implosion the result of the action of a small group of very greedy psychopaths who own the Federal Reserve system which if you tell people that inevitably results in a Conspiracy theorist stigma.
Yet, this party is the only party who have kept alive an ideal inherited from their NZ worker forebears based on the all to sharp memories of the workers who had to live trough the hell of the first great recession “the deprivatisation of the money and credit.” You see in the first great depression most workers were acutely aware of what the source of their misery was. They called it the “money trust”
My father in law (82) told me that as a young man he voted for the party for Social Credit. Today that party is called the Democrats for Social credit.
You’ll probably won’t vote for them this time because most Kiwi’s still have no idea what their heading for but as you loose your job, your house, your savings and in the next two years or so and you wonder where the next meal is coming from and if John Key gets elected and it becomes horribly clear why he did come back to this hicks in the sticks country and after three years we are left holding bag after what will be the biggest plunder this country has ever seen and all of youse finally realise that we’ve been had by the biggest criminals this world has ever seen: The private investment bankers and their oil cronies, perhaps you should give them a thought.
Because sometimes a “micro” party has a big idea whose time has come.
Hia DSC 08 good to see you here.
Ev, back in the 70s people laughed at Social Credit and called their policies “funny money” (compared to what, I have no idea).
Turns out they were probably quite correct all along but no-one was listening.
Interesting times.
Felix,
Yep, interesting times indeed.
Felix,
Have you seen the writing on the National John Key billboard on the left side of the road as you enter Raglan? Hilarious. It seems people are actually catching on.
Wasn’t me
Felix,
Kinda
If I were on the MÄori roll I would be in Te Tai Tonga and could vote for a MÄori Party candidate. My general electorate, Wellington Central, does not have a MÄori Party candidate so I don’t have that option (although I do have the party vote option).
Anita,
Thanks for clarifying that, it was the party vote I was really thinking of. Sometimes I is writing lazy.
Felix,
Sometimes I iz raiting pedint
Heh. I am sometimes accused of pedantry myself. I usually reply that I may be particular but that doesn’t necessarily make me pedantic and there is a difference.
As I have commented on Frogblog a ranking system for candidate and party votes would overcome the ‘wasted vote’ problem, and be fairer for the candidate vote too.
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2008/11/01/counting-your-vote/
Quentin,
Yes
A preferential system for electorates, and open party lists would make MMP even better 
RedLogix wrote in response to WP supporter Mike:
“But in reality you may as well not bother getting out of bed come 8th November.
Fundamental social change will happen, when the the people fundamentally change what they believe in and place value on.”
This last part is certainly true, but then we in the Workers Party have always insisted that our participation in elections is nothing more than an extension of the other campaigning work that we do day-in and day-out as anti-imperialist activists, as campaigners for open borders and full rights for migrant workers and as militant delegates and organisers in the trade unions.
The elections are simply a chance to highlight these campaigns, to put our anti-capitalist ideas before a wider audience and to offer those who reject zero-sum game of political lesser-evilism a chance to cast a revolutionary protest vote.
Along the way we also hope to recruit fresh layers of activists to help build a mass movement on the streets and in the workplace for revolutionary social change and genuine freedom.
Felix,
Wasn’t me either. LOL.
Is anyone here going to reply to Mr Woods?
Gustavo- I don’t know how RAM did so I can’t say. But I’m totally sympathetic with the idea of another genuine leftist voice in Parliament. Run a candidate in Ohariu and I’ll vote for you
Ari, I’m not actually part of RAM, but Oliver is the party Co-Leader and his link pretty thoroughly exposes SP’s irresponsible generalisation, to which he has offered no reply or apology.
Gustavo. I corrected the post. RAM’s candidates came last of the organised candidates, not last of all candidates as I had thought, in nearly all the contests they competed in.
I’ve got nothing against RAM’s politics, I just don’t want to see people throwing their votes away when that would make a right wing government more likely.
Labour will never get my vote.
National will never get my vote.
Capitalist parties will never get my vote.
The only reason that I will “get out of bed”, as Redlogix puts it, on Saturday 8th and vote is because there is an openly anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and pro worker revolutionary party on the ballot.
Clinton/Steve Pierson,
I remain disappointed with your utterly disingenuous ways of trying to make RAM look electorally weak.
Looking forward to your retrospective analysis of New Zealand political history that questions why people wasted their Liberal Party votes to vote for an emerging minor party called Labour
.
Yours in democracy and solidarity,
Oliver Woods
RAM Candidates Co-Leader
RAM Auckland Central candidate
P.S. Looking forward to your endorsement of the radical democratic socialist Judith Tizard in Auckland Central. She’ll doubtlessly lead the next wave of economic transformation in New Zealand! Hahaha.
And Micheal, I totally support the aims of such parties (although a revolutionary party on the ballot is not really revolutionary, oxymoron).
If a vote for WP or RAM could lead to WP or RAM MPs, I would totally advocate voting for them, But that’s not going to happen this time. Maybe next election things will be different, that would be great.
But come next Saturday, we face the choice, support the parties that are a step in the right direction or don’t, thereby, empowering the parties that would work against our ideals and against workers.
Oliver, its instructive to have a look at the ancestry of Labour http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Labour_Party#Origins a smattering of parties and independents that failed to win any seats (apart from one in 1905). It wasn’t until they got organised in 1916, that they started to win seats – 8 in 1919, 17 in 1922, and onward.
now, i think there could be space for a true left party to fill the void left by the collapse of the Alliance. But right now we have four parties fighting over the same little niche and failing to build that niche, much as the Christian Right is fighting over the remainders of the Christian Coalition’s support base. You’ve got these petty ideological and personal disputes, and geographical divides. If you get over them, you can build a vehicle for leftwing politics that could reach 5%. Until that happens, you’ll just be a vehicle for true Left voters to accidentally increase the odds of a National government.
Yeah, and if just one percent of those 33,000 votes had gone to the Progressives, there would have been another Progressive MP. Then a Labour-Green-Progressive government would have been formed, instead of a Labour-Progressive government with United and NZ First support.
So, actually, Steve, your advice helps take Labour to the right, and risks not getting Labour elected at all.
One extra party vote for Progressive is just as likely to bring another MP as one extra party vote for Labour.
Redlogix wrote:
“But the choice we face in a few weeks time is not between capitalism and socialism it is between a National or a Labour led coalition govt. The primary question is, which would you prefer?”
You are right; the choice between socialism and capitalism appears to be a long way off. I don’t claim that a Labour-led government would be the same as a National-led one. Labour will, for example, make union organising easier (through access to worksites). However in the light of the current economic turmoil, both Labour and National are returning to Keynesian style spending programmes. I do not believe that the difference between National and Labour would be anything like as stark as many people (including on this forum) claim or imply. Both are parties of the centre-right. Both are wedded to the market but in order to save the market in the face of the current downturn, both have been forced to temper that with a dose of Keynes. The differences are in the detail. I won’t welcome a National win next weekend but I won’t be overcome with despair if it happens. I’ve lived through plenty of Labour and National governments and I’ve seen things get progressively worse under both. I’m more interested in thinking long-term.
Under Labour, between 2000 and 2004 the proportion of all NZ
children in severe and significant hardship increased by a third, to 26%. As I’ve said before, the gap between rich and poor has tended to rise regardless of which party has been in office. Yes, working for families has helped *some* of those people (including me; I have 2 kids and bugger all income), but as I’ve said before, this is scrabbling for crumbs. The WP is in for the long haul and we see the election as a time to engage with people and put socialism back on the agenda. I don’t see that ever happening within a programme of calling for a vote for Labour and being motivated by a fear of National.
Redlogix again:
“The secondary question is, does a vote for the WP assist or detract from that?”
I doubt that the WP will get many votes and most of those will be from people who would not have voted otherwise, as they are already disillusioned with the current parties, so it probably won’t make any difference at all. The reason we’re standing is to let people know that the left does still exist, that there is a genuinely left party out there that people can get involved with, and that we are around every day of the year, not just at election time, since we don’t see elections as the key arena of political struggle.
Redlogix ends with:
“Besides capitalism appears to be crumbling under the weight of it’s own monstrous hubris .regardless of how we cast our votes.”
If only it were so easy! The history of industrial capitalism over the last few hundred years shows us that this will never happen. In fact it is this misconception that has led in part to the popularity of reformist ideas. Capitalism will never fall over by itself; many capitalists may (and will) fail, there could well be massive attacks on working people in the process of saving it but there is nothing more certain than that it will be saved unless it is actively overthrown (which doesn’t have to mean violent insurrection BTW). The attacks on the working class that will occur as required to save the system will be carried out by either a Labour or National government, as the events of 1984 (when Helen Clark was a member of the cabinet) should make perfectly clear.
Cheers,
John
One of the main obstacles to a Labour-Green-Progressives govt is Anderton and his arrogant and patronising attitude to working with the Greens.
The sooner we can do away with that old fool the better for the left.
How can you suggest that RAM and the Workers Party are the same. That’s like comparing the Peoples Front of Judea to the Judean Peoples Front!