Voting MMP style
Some people are still ignorant of MMP. Some voters think that they are still going to vote for a Government. Under MMP we are actually voting for a Parliament - The Government is formed by post election negotiation. That is why it is more important how many seats the Left and the Right get, as opposed to what Labour and National get.
Doesn’t anybody remember the weeks that Winston held the country to ransom, while he was negotiating to get as many limousines as he could?
We have two votes: a party vote and the candidate vote - the party vote is the most important as it decides the make up of the House of Representatives. The candidate vote decides who your MP will be. If a candidate from your favoured party is not standing for election in your electorate (eg: NZ First in Wellington Central), you can still vote for that party for the party vote, but you will not have an MP from that party as your MP. You`ll have to vote for a candidate from another party.
And if you vote for that party and it just reaches the five percent threshold, and you cant stand the leader of that party but your favoured candidate is number four on the list, you are not voting for your favoured candidate to get a seat, you`re voting for the party leader first and foremost, for obvious reasons.
If your party does not get five percent or one elected candidate, your party vote is discarded, some call it "wasted". It is not redistributed among other parties. However the discarded votes are "effectively redistributed" as party vote percentages are recalculated up, thus determining the allocation of seats and the makeup of the House of Representatives.
Only then does the real negotiation start between relevant parties. Then the Government is formed.
OK I know it sounds basic to all you pundits, but some people don’t know this. Some probably cannot name a person in Parliament who is not elected. Can you?
Finally it would be interesting to see how many people on the Maori roll vote this year. In 2002 just 58 percent of those on the Maori roll bothered to vote.
If you`re interested here's all the party's lists.
3 comments:
I don't understand this part at all:
>And if you vote for that party
>and it just reaches the five
>percent threshold, and you cant
>stand the leader of that party
>but your favoured candidate is
>number four on the list, you are
>not voting for your favoured
>candidate to get a seat, you`re
>voting for the party leader first
>and foremost, for obvious reasons.
5% = 6 MPs. If there is no chance of an electorate seat, a party will either get 0 MPs, or 6 or more. The first 6 list places are therefore equivalent.
If the leader can win an electorate, your party vote is still effectively not a vote for him as he will be there anyway. It is a vote for the other people on the list.
Yeah that was an error - should have been "favoured candidate is number seven or higher"
Dave
ALso If *anyone* in the list wins an electorate seat ( be it number one, two, or 25, on the list) that person gets in irrespective of the party vote and the percentage of that party vote determines how many of the list gets in. THats why a party vote for UF and Progresssives and possibly the Maori party will count. ALthough Maori Party could get more seats than the proportion of their list vote.
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