Hence, my answer (”Each electorate has approximately the same number of eligible voters”)

No. That option is substantially wrong. Electorate boundaries are drawn by reference to population – this includes those under 18 – not by reference to voting-age population. The Maori electorates, and other electorates with a disproportionately small or large population of young people have vastly different numbers of voters.

It uses the actual number of party votes, but the number of party votes a party is only relevant when compared to the total (non wasted) vote. So if a party than gets 15,000 votes it does not determine the number of seats. It is only relavant as a proportion of the total. Sure the St Lague formula doesnt actually calculate the %s then use those values but it is the perscentage/proportion that influences the outcome of the calculation.

Also the wording that the party vote % is “to help decide if the party has crossed the treshold” for the “correct” answer is bad because it doesn’t help decide, it DOES decide.

[DPF: Wrong on all counts. The total number of votes has no bearing on the St Lague formula. And also wrong on corssing the threshold as one can cross it by winnign an electorate seat so help decide is correct]

Your Score: 7 out of 9
77.8%

Average Score: 5.8 out of 9
64.8%

You answered 2 questions incorrectly. Here are the correct answers:

I got Q9 wrong as I hoped it wasn’t the right answer.
I guess now under the Treaty of Waitangi we should get rid of voting in the Maori seats and just appoint 7 people. Or maybe Pita can present a paper suggesting that each Iwi should appoint its own representitive and that automatically they should collectively be called the Maori party.

I also got the foreign prince wrong, guess they must first be the king. Who decides if a by-election is required if somebody resigns, or is it not WORTH (list MP not withstanding) it.

Urk! You’re absolutely right!! I just read the answer I wanted to … (ie that each electorate contains roughly equal numbers of people, not voters)!!! So mea culpa – I got that one wrong too … no need for a chocolate fish, DPF.

Frankly, this is why multi-choice is such a bad way of testing knowledge. I had a friend involved in setting a University exam paper with 3 others – they thought a multi-choice component would save them a heap of marking time (no need to read bad handwriting and work out whether students knew their stuff). They then spent 2 days fighting over which answer to each question was the “most right”. God knows what the students made of the whole exercise.

a) is plain wrong
b) the maximum issue referred to above makes this wrong, but ALSO, as AG points out, the average population is not the criteria, it is the NI and SI quotas – which can be significantly different.
c) Boundaries are set according to electoral population, NOT eligible voters. The numbers can be quite different, eg if an electorate has a high proportion of children.
d) Te Tai Tonga straddles both NI and SI.

Hooray! Given that, do I win a chocolate fish?

And if that was what the statement said, it would be correct. But it isn’t what it says. So it’s not right.

The correct statement would be “When electorate boundaries are re-drawn the TOTAL population of each electorate MUST BE 5% more or 5% less than the average electorate size.”

You can’t just rewrite each statement to make it say what you want it to … otherwise every answer would be “right”, if it were only worded differently! And that would be silly!!

[DPF: Rereading the question I now agree with you]

The percentage of party votes cast for a party is used …
Answer:
to help decide if a party has crossed the threshold

This is of course correct, but their other option was “to be used in the calculation for the distrabution of seats in parliament”

This is also correct, and I couldnt decide which one to choose. I obviously chose the wrong one.

I assume that what they are getting at is that the % of party votes doesnt correlate directly to the proportion of seats in parliament, cos of wasted vote (and also overhang). But the % of party vote is still effectively used in the calculations.

I also disagreed with the one about the electorate seats having to be within 5% population of average electorate size. I got it wrong saying that they seats had to have approximately the same population. But isnt that waht the 5% rule does, it ensuere roughly equal population. My answer was correct just less precise.

[DPF: The percenatge of party vote is a trick question. People think it is used to calculate seats but it is not. The St Lague formula used actual number of votes]

I guess it could still be an issue if you pledge certain allegiances to him before he’s King?

I console myself that anyway I am more interested in reducing political deeds to basic right and wrong, good and bad than I am in the technical minutiae…

I got questions 4, 6, 7 and 9 wrong.