electoral systems

Categories under electoral systems

Polity: Even non-coattail electorate deals can create unfair advantage

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, June 12th, 2014 - 21 comments

What of the deals with true minnow parties, like United Future or ACT? If a party is only polling enough to get one seat anyway, does it matter to Parliament overall whether the small party wins an electorate or its client big party wins it instead? The answer is “possibly, yes,” because we can never be sure which party ultimately loses a seat to accommodate the new minnow party in a 120 seat parliament. Say a Epsom deal as a test case

David Farrar badly needs night school

Written By: - Date published: 3:08 pm, June 6th, 2014 - 45 comments

In Kiwiblog this morning, David Farrar appeared to be running a 9th floor pre-pump for John Banks to resign. But I was rather incredulous when I read this “I don’t think the Judge has actually helped the Government by delaying the decision on entering a conviction. Now that it is the Judge’s role to care about the impact on the Government.”. Huh? DPF badly needs to go back to do some adult education. Perhaps to night school?

Pagani should read up on Labour policy

Written By: - Date published: 5:26 pm, June 1st, 2014 - 101 comments

On Q&A this morning Josie Pagani criticised Labour for not trying to get the MMP coat tail rule removed. The only  problem is that Labour already has a bill ready to do just this. Before criticising the Party for inaction she should learn what the party is actually doing.

The coat-tail rule and democracy

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 pm, May 30th, 2014 - 136 comments

Allow me to fly in the face of an accepted truth in NZ politics by saying this: there is absolutely nothing undemocratic about the MMP “coat-tail” rules.

Russel & Metiria – or Winston?

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, April 23rd, 2014 - 133 comments

Yesterday Rob Salmond commented on Labour’s two likeliest options for coalition partners after the 2014 election, and had some interesting things to say about New Zealand First and the Greens. But I must beg to differ on the suggested advantages of offering a plum deal to Winston and expecting Russel and Metiria to play along […]

Polity: Boundary changes

Written By: - Date published: 5:16 pm, April 18th, 2014 - 20 comments

Rob Salmond’s take on the boundary changes announced last week. In a MMP election system the actual electoral boundaries usually only really matter to a few MPs. It isn’t likely to make much of a difference unless National manages to have a cup of tea with a party with enough electoral muscle to get more than a single MP into the house and an electorate’s voters think this matters. After the John Banks/Act debacle who’d be moronic enough to think that electorate seats in a list do matter? Apart from our silly first-past-the-post stand-in-man for David Farrar of course…

Labour and the Greens

Written By: - Date published: 1:42 pm, April 11th, 2014 - 162 comments

It’s not that complicated.

NRT: Unsurprising

Written By: - Date published: 2:52 pm, April 10th, 2014 - 17 comments

But on any realistic numbers, its unthinkable for a future Labour government not to include the Greens, and as Gordon Campbell points out, by refusing to define their relationship themselves, Labour has given National a free hand to do it for them – and in undoubtedly negative terms. That won’t do the Greens any harm. But its unlikely to be good for Labour.

Polity: The Greens’ proposed pre-election deal

Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, April 10th, 2014 - 58 comments

Last night, via One News, the public became aware that the Greens had proposed a pre-election coalition with Labour, but Labour had rejected it. While the Greens’ offer is nothing unusual internationally, New Zealand’s comparatively fair electoral system doesn’t provide Labour much incentive to accept it. Which, I think, makes Labour’s rejection of the proposal much less noteworthy.

Tim Watkin is wrong

Written By: - Date published: 10:22 am, April 8th, 2014 - 21 comments

Tim Watkin recently had a post over at Pundit, saying about why a 15% gap between Labour and National matters. His crux point is that in no MMP election has a party led by 15% and not formed the government. Unfortunately for Tim, this is demonstrably wrong.

Positive Things

Written By: - Date published: 2:27 pm, February 16th, 2014 - 21 comments

Change becomes embedded when it emanates from and across many quarters and traditions.

Polity: Data on moral mandates in Europe

Written By: - Date published: 4:04 pm, February 14th, 2014 - 3 comments

Rob Salmond continues looking at the absolute silliness of the argument about the largest party having a “moral mandate” to form a government. It appears to be a self-serving wet dream made up by fossils who still haven’t grasped that we are nearly in our second decade of MMP.  All our governments have been coalitions where the largest parties have usually received a mandate of less that a third of those on the roll. But look at the long-standing proportional governments of Europe for examples…

Key’s transparent gerrymander

Written By: - Date published: 8:12 pm, February 9th, 2014 - 101 comments

For John Key, MMP stands for “Manipulate Members of Parliament”. Senior journalists are beginning to call him on the games he’s playing, and good on them; gerrymander entered the New Zealand political lexicon at Key’s press conference this week. Key wants to push the issues away till closer to the election, when he’ll know what his polling is telling him – I hope the gallery don’t let him.

Prosecuting Cunliffe

Written By: - Date published: 3:06 pm, December 5th, 2013 - 56 comments

No Right Turn writes on what should happen with David Cunliffe screwing up on election day. Sensible advice and commentary on what looks like a typical example of some of the innumerable silly mistakes and accidents that happen during election campaigns. The reaction of some on the right has been pretty damn hilarious when they compare what looks like deliberate concealment of electoral finance with a silly tweeting mistake

Coat-tail of Many Colours

Written By: - Date published: 1:19 pm, November 22nd, 2013 - 72 comments

Te Reo Putake speculates on exactly what plan that National and John Key have to distort the MMP review and Iain Lee Galloway’s private members bill so that it allows them to stay in power. Most probably by gifting Crazy Colin and the Conservatives with several chances to get several partners into parliament while discarding the husks of their former coalition partners.

Enrol for the referendum by the 21st

Written By: - Date published: 3:57 pm, November 19th, 2013 - 41 comments

If you aren’t currently enrolled or are unsure, then you will have to be enrolled in the next few days. We can shove the lie of “mandate” straight back into this National government’s lying face. Maybe when National are deprived of that silly excuse for their theft, they will stop stealing.

Key loses his “Centre”, Herald spins right, Smith on the ropes

Written By: - Date published: 11:31 am, September 25th, 2013 - 35 comments

Cunliffe’s moderate, centre left Labour is on the rise; MSM-supported, NAct smears & negative spin is in over-drive.  John Key and the NZ Herald editorial  spin from the radical “neoliberal” right.  Slippery Nick Smith, a NAct weak point, is under concerted pressure. [Updated]

Do the media not understand preferential voting?

Written By: - Date published: 11:24 pm, September 9th, 2013 - 27 comments

I’ve cast my vote.  It was as simple as 1, 2, 3, <submit>. If my first choice doesn’t get it, I’m very hopeful that my 2nd preference will.  It’s my vote, not media pundits that will count. So why do pundits keep suggesting that Shane Jones will get to decide whether David or Grant will be the next leader?

Moral mandates

Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, July 3rd, 2013 - 115 comments

Key is clearly getting nervous about the implosion of his possible electoral partners in 2014. He’s running the “largest party has a moral mandate to govern line” again. It’s destabilising, and it’s rubbish, here’s why…

Labour on MMP “consultation”

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, May 16th, 2013 - 29 comments

According to Labour: “Judith Collins has claimed that she ‘consulted’ with political parties but was unable to reach consensus. There was absolutely no consultation.”

Judith Collins, MMP, “consensus” & democracy

Written By: - Date published: 6:33 pm, May 14th, 2013 - 69 comments

Holly Walker dragged out of Judith Collins that the government will not  implement the Electoral Commission’s recommendations for MMP.   Collins argues there is no “consensus” between all political parties on possible changes.  The Greens say National has not kept the promise of changes, out of self interest.

NRT: MMP review: Running down the clock

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, April 26th, 2013 - 1 comment

I/S at No Right Turn on the strange disappearance of the Electoral Commission recommendations on MMP. Soon it will be too late to have changes in place for 2014…

Deja vu all over again: Labour in 2014 edition

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, January 13th, 2013 - 104 comments

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here:  a Labour victory in 2014 isn’t necessarily better than a National victory in 2014.

Random thoughts on MMP

Written By: - Date published: 4:14 pm, November 6th, 2012 - 36 comments

Colin James has expressed my response to Judith Collin’s politicialising of the MMP review. “Elections do not belong to MPs. Elections belong to the people. MPs should be very wary of appropriating what belongs to others.”.  Self-interested bleating by Act and United Future doesn’t mean that National should go off and do another short-term hack of the good proposals as they did in after 1993. The recommendations are clear and an accurate reflection of public mood. Just implement them as they are.

MMP: we need follow through

Written By: - Date published: 5:29 pm, November 5th, 2012 - 20 comments

The Electoral Commission’s report is out. Now we need to make sure that the Government follow-thru on what an independent board have decided having listened to ordinary New Zealanders’ submissions.

MMP Review newsletter

Written By: - Date published: 3:46 pm, September 4th, 2012 - Comments Off on MMP Review newsletter

We’re just days away from the end of public consultation on the MMP Review, and this week is your last chance make a submission on the Proposals Paper. You can make your submission online or via email to mmpreview@elections.govt.nz

Geddis: Is someone trying to game the MMP review?

Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, August 24th, 2012 - 31 comments

The excellent Andrew Geddis at Pundit has an interesting post up this morning. You should head on over there and check it out. Here are a couple of extracts to get you started…

Frankly Speaking: “John Banks: condition deteriorating”

Written By: - Date published: 3:05 pm, August 15th, 2012 - 18 comments

Frank Macskasy over at Frankly Speaking writes some very long posts that are often full of interesting information. This one does a good analysis of the recommendations from the Electoral Commission and various party positions on it. On the way through he has a good swipe at John Banks, who it would be safe to say, he considers to be political cabbage.

Quick thoughts on MMP changes

Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, August 14th, 2012 - 19 comments

Lowering the threshold to 4% is a step in the right direction but why not go further? Getting rid of coattailing is negative in theory but in practice could stop anti-democratic gaming by major parties protecting tiny client parties. Abolishing overhangs is bad – it just increases disproportionality for parties with strong electorate support vs party support – ie the Maori Party.

MMP review

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, August 13th, 2012 - 87 comments

The first proposal paper from the Electoral Commission on the MMP review is due out soon.

Updated with the early coverage.

MMP Review: Last Day

Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, May 31st, 2012 - 1 comment

Today is the last day for submissions to the MMP Review.

If you haven’t done so yet, make sure your have your say – it only takes 5 minutes for the short submission.