How STV may have worked in 2008
November 14th, 2011 at 11:00 am by David FarrarSTV is very different to all the other electoral systems in the referendum. All the others have one MP per electorate, and some have List MPs on top of that.
STV has multiple MPs per electorate, and no List MPs. It is reasonably proportional, and all MPs are voted in directly by voters, rather than through party lists. That’s one of the reasons I like it. I think MMP gives party leaders far far too much power.
It is difficult to sum STV up in a couple of paragraphs, so what Stephen Russell has done is model what might have happened in the 2008 election under STV. His full paper is embedded at the end of this post.
Each electorate would have 3 to 7 MPs in it. Now yes the electorate boundaries are bigger than under MMP, but access to an electorate MP would be easier, as you would have 120 of them., not 70. And they are all of equal status. Even better, almost all seats will have a National and a Labour MP, so if you want you can choose which one you see. And where a party has multiple MPs per seat, they will probably locate them at different ends of the electorate.
You can click on an image for a larger version.
And this is the modeled boundaries for Auckland under STV.
So what would the results be? The paper has all the assumptions over how preferences would flow.
| STV electorate | MPs | Parties | |
| 1 | Northern Maori | 7 | Maori 5, Lab 2 |
| 2 | Southern Maori | 5 | Maori 3, Lab 2 |
| 3 | Southland | 3 | Nat 2, Lab 1 |
| 4 | Otago | 5 | Nat 2, Lab 2, Gre 1 |
| 5 | Canterbury-West Coast | 5 | Nat 3, Lab 2 |
| 6 | Christchurch South | 5 | Nat 2, Lab 2, Prog 1 |
| 7 | Christchurch North | 5 | Nat 3, Lab 2 |
| 8 | Top of the South | 4 | Nat 2, Lab 2 |
| 9 | Wellington | 5 | Lab 2, Nat 1, Gre 1, UF 1 |
| 10 | Hutt-Porirua | 5 | Lab 3, Nat 2 |
| 11 | Manawatu | 5 | Nat 3, Lab 2 |
| 12 | West Central | 5 | Nat 3, Lab 2 |
| 13 | Hawke’s Bay-Wairarapa | 5 | Nat 3, Lab 2 |
| 14 | East Cape | 5 | Nat 3, Lab 2 |
| 15 | Kaimai | 5 | Nat 3, Lab 1, NZF 1 |
| 16 | Waikato South | 5 | Nat 3, Lab 2 |
| 17 | Waikato North | 5 | Nat 4, Lab 1 |
| 18 | Tamaki | 5 | Nat 4, Lab 1 |
| 19 | Manukau | 5 | Lab 4, Nat 1 |
| 20 | Central Auckland | 5 | Nat 2, Lab 2, ACT 1 |
| 21 | One Tree Hill | 5 | Lab 3, Nat 2 |
| 22 | Waitakere | 6 | Nat 4, Lab 2 |
| 23 | North Shore | 5 | Nat 3, Lab 2 |
| 24 | Northland | 5 | Nat 3, Lab 2 |
| TOTAL | 120 | Nat 58, Lab 48, Maori 8, Gre 2, NZF 1, Prog 1, ACT 1, UF 1 |
The Gallagher Index (which measures proportionality) is:
PARTY VOTE% SEATS SEATS%
National 44.9 58 48.33
Labour 34.0 48 40
Maori 2.4 8 6.67
Green 6.7 2 1.67
Act 3.7 1 0.83
United 0.9 1 0.83
Progressive 0.9 1 0.83
NZ First 4.1 1 0.83
Gallagher Index: 7.1
Now on this scenario (and that is all it is), National actually ends up worse off. Their number of seats is the same as under MMP, but Labour gets five more seats. National/ACT/United would be 60/120 seats so the Maori Party would have held the balance of power.
Stephen has also done a quick analysis of the 2005 election, and estimates it s outcome under STV would be:
- Labour 56
- National 53
- Maori 6
- Green 1
- Act 1
- United 1
- Progressive 1
- NZ First 1
That would again give the Maori Party the balance of power.
I tend to think that the minor parties would do a bit better under STV than this model shows. Stephen has modeled that 45% of National voters would make Labour their 2nd choice, and I think it would be lower than that.
Overall a very interesting look at how STV could work. Like I said, what I like about the system is that it is both roughly proportional, and that all MPs are elected directly from the voters. This should encourage higher quality candidates. If (for example) Labour wants to win that third seat in One Tree Hill, they won’t be putting up a union hack who doesn’t even live there – instead they’ll be putting up someone known in their local community who has the ability to attract the extra votes needed.
STV Applied to 2008 Result Nov 14 2011
November 14th, 2011 at 11:07 am
STV really is a great system – accountability for all.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 11:11 am
I like STV too, but it is too complex for the electorate to grasp. MMP has been hard enough.
I prefer it to MMP, because it is more democratic and I believe politics should be anchored locally (within communities).
MMP removed 50% of the people’s democratic power (List MPs) and diminished the relevance of local constituencies.
I will be voting for change, and then hoping for a BIG education/information campaign to educate NZ on the best electoral system for us. In the end I think its FPP, because its simple (everyone understands it), it provides local representation, and in coming years, we will need STRONG clear political leadership (not Committees) to get us thru the coming Great Depression II.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 11:19 am
I don’t buy that “too complex” argument, how hard is it to rank a list in order of preference or tick a pre-designated “how (insert favoured party) wants me to vote box?
I like that it gets rid of scum list MPs, removes tactical voting and allows you to first preference a small party that would be a “wasted” vote under MMP.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 11:24 am
James, some people still do not understand MMP so i guess its possible that anything is beyond some people.
but i agree, it should not be hard at all to rank your preferences. the detractors would have us believe that there are a large number of people out there who would be stumped by the process when you asked them list their top 5 favourite musicians or rank your favourite members of the all blacks etc.
now what is correct is that its the most complex system to work out a result from, but thats what computers are for and frankly i find it dishonest the insinuation by some that the complexity of the counting makes the voting process complicated as well.
sadly the referendum has been gerrymandered to ensure MMP is retained via fear of FPP, so its all pointless sadly.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 11:29 am
I like the idea of STV too, and voted for it way back when.
I particularly dislike the current list members where unwanted-by-the-voters MPs and party hacks can continue in parliament.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 11:35 am
I went through the online analysis of the different systems, and it placed somewhere between STV and MMP, and so I was dithering about which way to go. Then I heard an interesting interview with an Irish political analyst.
Under STV, yes the MPs are much more beholden to their constituencies – to the point where the local constituency issues end up taking precedence over the big national issues! The Irish economic crisis, according to the analyst, has been made worse because of STV and the close dedication to constituency issues. The big national issues have been largely sidelined because of it.
So on balance I think I will stick with MMP, but would like to see it reformed, so that for example, someone cannot unsuccessfully run for an electorate and still end up coming in on the list, and so on.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 11:37 am
I like STV as a system all votes count. But for it to work correctly the Maori seats need to be abolished!!! As shown by the examples of the two previous elections the Maori Party or whatever party is most popular with Maori voters at the time (At present Maori Party, previously it was mostly Lab) has a huge advantage from the Maori seats. If the most popular party in the Maori seats is a minor party they will most likely always hold the balance of power. This would mean the members of the Maori roll decide the Govt of NZ.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 11:48 am
Two small clarifications:
The reason there there is no preference distribution to Act is that apart from Rodney Hide in Central Auckland, there is clearly no place where Act could have won another seat, so any votes reallocated to Act would have ended up being further reallocated anyway.
The 45% allocation of National preferences to Labour comes only when the choice has boiled down to Labour, Green and NZ First.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 11:51 am
I don’t find it helpful to retrofit a different system into previous voting patterns. It is totally meaningless as people would have/will vote(d) differently under a different system. FWIW I favour SM, still some list MPs I know but not as many and, more importantly, the party vote applies only to them (30), not to the whole 120.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 11:56 am
I think MMP would improve a lot if parties were forced to chnage how they use it – they won’t do it of their own accord.
Electorate MPs should be local representatives, list MPs should be more of an executive level. It’s nuts that the busiest MPs (PM, Minister of Finance, leader of the oposition, party leaders) should also have electorates to look after.
The only way to get parties to change is by voting, choose more electorate MPs who will be best for their electorate, and to punish parties electorally if they stack their lists with cronies.
Ideally we should have a number of independent or semi independent electorate MPs who are committed to representing their electorates first and foremost.
But in reality changing voter sheep habits and apathy is probably harder than changing how parties misuse MMP.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 11:58 am
The information campaign will be needed before the vote: the referendum includes two questions: the should we keep MMP or should we change question; and one which asks people to decide between FPP, PV, STV and SM as their favoured alternative. Everyone gets to vote in vote, or can choose to vote in one or the other.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
Excellent post David
When I was a first year student one of my holiday jobs was working for the noted political scientist Alan McRobie who I believe is more academically rigourous than the more famously used Nigel Roberts. It was a fascinating job that introduced me to the world of Psephology (the study and analysis of elections). It was then that I was first introduced to STV as McRobie was a great researcher into electoral systems long before the famous 1986 Royal Commission.
I was always struck by the fact that STV combined many of the benefits of FPP (local electorate representation) with the benefits of proportional representation. Seeing MMP in action for 15 years now we see that it’s worst feature is the tyranny of the party lists and the various problems associated with it. The one major drawback of STV for the juristictions that use it (such as the Australian Senate, Tasmania and Ireland) was the time it took to calculate and count the vote using the Droop quota but the advent of computers has made that task much easier and so it is unlikely that STV results would take any longer to process than the laborious separation of the ballot papers into party and electorate vote that happens when counting NZ MMP elections.
Whilst the calculation is complex, explaining how to vote is no more complicated than explaining MMP to an electorate raised on FPP. The latest One New/CB poll has STV as the 3rd most popular option. My dream was for a wealthy political geek benefactor to fund a massive education campaign extolling the virtues of STV and it one day prevailing….but hey dreams are free!
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Hi Graeme Edgeler
Vote:Don’t mean to subvert this post .. I asked a question about changes to overseas voting on the General Debate today (which may have got buried in the chaff). Would love an answer if you could. Please all replies to GD
Thanks
Tim
November 14th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
I agree with DPF that minor parties (especially the Green Party) may have done a little better than this in actuality. But that is a hunch with no mathematical justification, so I did not try and account for it in the analysis.
The major reason is the potential for “split preferences”. Example. Mrs McGinty is a Labour voter, but also likes the Greens. Undfer MMP she can only choose one party, so votes Labour. Under STV however, she might give her first preference to a Labour candidate, but her second preference to a Green candidate instead of to Labour candidate No.2. Depending how the count goes that could give a big boost to Green chances of winning a seat.
However, the fact is that STV really has a kind of semi-threshold. A party with 5% of the vote will find itself squeezed out of the count almost every time, and will be lucky to win one seat. However, a party with 10% of the vote experiences the opposite effect – it will almost always be in the race for the fifth seat in a 5-member electorate, and preferences will often push it over the line, meaning that it wins more than 10% of the seats.
An interesting illustration: I considered what would happen in a provincial seat where (thinking of Saturday week) lets say National got 58%, Labour 25%, the Greens 11% and others 6%. National would get three seats on 1st prefs and Labour one. In the race for the fifth seats the Greens would be ahead on 11% with National and Labour on about 8% each. Distribution of the “öthers” would probably slightly favour National – bringing the split to (say) N11.5%, G11.5%, L10%. Labour would be eliminated. Those prefences would give the fifth seat to the Greens. Final result N3, L1, G1 – despite the fact that Labour got more than double the Green vote.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:23 pm
These maps are far more fun…
http://www.carloslabs.com/node/20
Type in an address or neighbourhood, select your weapon of choice and press ‘nuke it’
It is marvellous to see how much of the Hutt Valley could be destroyed by dropping various sizes of nuclear weapons over Taita
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
I’d agree that minor parties would do better under STV compared to the simulation – how many National voters are going to put Labour as No 2 vote or vice versa?
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
Very interesting, I did my own estimation of STV based on STV results and I got about the same score for Nat and Labour MPs. I probably would’ve given Jeanette Fitzsimmons, Kenneth Wang and Ron Mark a seat as well. Possibly one in the Auckland Central seat too (Denise Roche perhaps).
And who knows as well, it would’ve been a lot easier for a strong local independent to draw support-in Ireland under STV around 10% of their MPs are independents.
I will be voting for MMP, but giving my second vote to STV.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Another thought (unfortunately not mine I read it somewhere).
Vote:If we were to retain MMP (not my preference) then I saw a suggestion as to the “List Members”. They should not be list members as proposed by the parties but taken in order of the most votes of the unelected electorate candidates. Therefore the people would in effect determine the Lists and no one can stand as a List only MP. This would IMHO get rid of most of the stigma of unelected “scum list” MPs getting in off the party list. It would mean that in the case of, let’s say ACT the Dr Don would have to stand in the electorate that if he didn’t win would at least give him a decent number of votes. Andrew Little would have to make a good fist of his chances by engaging with New Plymouth etc. I am sure this would apply to candidates of all parties.
November 14th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
I’m not clear why a “party hack” is automatically less worthy than a well respected local candidate.
The local candidates will probably have to trade on name recognition. Cue lots of washed up sports stars, movie “stars” and other “personalities”, and fewer people with any real knowledge or skills.
If I was a Labour voter, I might exactly be voting for union hacks, because what I want is the reunionisation of NZ, and union hacks can help with that. If I was a National voter, I might be voting for someone who has a strong background in economic productivity, who might not be a washed up All Black. Or I might want someone who is a high quality manager who can help reform our public service. Who again might not be a washed up All Black.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:40 pm
Rick Rowling,
Vote:See my post above:
The 45% allocation of National preferences to Labour comes only when the choice has boiled down to Labour, Green and NZ First. Ie Act, UF etc have already been eliminated.
November 14th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
MarkF: consequence of your proposal is that “Labour” electorates would have low quality candidates from National standing, and vice versa. The aim of all politicians would be to obtain and hold a safe seat, and therefore the parties would carefully protect selection for safe seats, making sure that only the most loyal of party hacks were ever allowed to stand in a safe seat. Giving you exactly the situation you rail against today, but with even less ability for the voters to influence it. That’s how things worked under FPP, and how it would work if you pushed your amendments to MMP.
I prefer to stick to MMP, but I would readily agree that STV is the only system that somewhat fixes this problem – you get 5 National candidates in your electorate, and you can vote for the ones you like the most – so the party hack that you didn’t like won’t get a vote. It’s a form of allowing members to rank the party list. (Which, by the way, would be another way to fix this supposed problem in MMP).
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:47 pm
I’ll say the same thing I always say when someone is pushing a loopy overcomplicated system: why the obsession with obtaining proportionality by manipulating the number of bums on seats in the house, why not manipulate the value of votes in the house? Just make the members’ votes worth more or less in proportion to their party’s share of the election vote.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
“I like STV as a system all votes count. But for it to work correctly the Maori seats need to be abolished!!! As shown by the examples of the two previous elections the Maori Party or whatever party is most popular with Maori voters at the time (At present Maori Party, previously it was mostly Lab) has a huge advantage from the Maori seats. If the most popular party in the Maori seats is a minor party they will most likely always hold the balance of power. This would mean the members of the Maori roll decide the Govt of NZ.”
And what if a bunch of general seats chose to move away from Labour and National? Would you get those banned too?
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
MarkF – the Royal Commission looked at that, but rejected it: in part because people would be voting for a party with no idea what they’d get.
It might work okay for National and Labour, but think of the minor parties: people might vote for ACT, and find that the party leader doesn’t make it in because someone who was just standing in some safe National or Labour seat picked up more votes than would be expected. Half the Green MPs could be people we’ve never heard of, and they could change from election to election despite the Green Party vote increasing because of regional variations and new boundaries, just because the Greens happened to do better than expected in some electorate race they were still going to come a distant third in. etc.
If you want voters to have control over a list, your better option is having open lists.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
I can’t see how STV gets rid of the “in on the list” default entry for an MP. It would still be likely that an MP unliked by many constituents (and usually they are from the opposing side of the political divide) would still get in as a lesser ranked candidate within the electorate. Candidates usually have some core base of support espicially if they have been through a selection process.
I could see more independant candidates being selected under STV. Someone without party endorsement but with good local support could get through as a 3rd, 4th or 5th ranked candidate. More independants would lead to a more difficult parliament to work with, with more “horse trading” to get their support.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Hi Tim – haven’t a clue. I would have anticipated that you’d always have needed a printer and paper, but would have thought at both this election and past ones, that you could have scanned an emailed your vote. Something to ask the Electoral Commission, I’m afraid.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
I’ll vote for the system that results in fewer politicians. Which one is it?
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 12:59 pm
“His full paper is embedded at the end of this post”
Is it?
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Thanks for post, it ensures I won’t be voting for STV.
Why in god’s name would you want a system that allows a party thats not even representational of the citizens to hold the balance of power.
We would need a new election every 6 months because every government would end in tears
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Having lived in Ireland which has STV I would like to make the following notes:
Independents: STV makes it much easier to get independents into parliament, after the Irish 2011 election there was a massive increase in the number of Independents in the Dail (Irish parliament). This model takes no account of this. Furthermore Act did hold Wellington Central once, and yet this model does not take account that they could still hold it. It is not possible to provide as accurate an outcome with a poll under STV versus MMP.
No instant results: After the polling booths closes it can take days for all the votes to be counted, so there is no election night special rather a full after election day special. The counting of a party vote makes it much simpler.
Funerals: Irish TDs (MPs) spend a lot of time going to every funeral around because they need to be seen at all times.
Protect my consultancy: With MMP the electorate vote is nice but is unimportant. Under STV the Irish TDs (MPs) were constantly protecting their patch and threatening to leave the party if the government did something that they did not like. With MMP the govt can actually get on with governing the nation. There was also a feeling that there needed to be a wide distribution of ministers.
Wasted vote: If I were a Act party supporter in an electorate with no chance of an Act victory my vote support for Act would not be counted and while I could pass it of to another party I would prefer to support Act (I actually support national).
Gerrymandering: Thankfully both Ireland and New Zealand do not have any major problems with Gerrymandering.
STV is better than unfair and undemocratic FFP but MMP beats them both.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Would you not get preference deals in each electorate like they do in Australia? and election campaigns being more about distributing ‘how to vote’ cards than actual policy?
I prefer FPP because it is simple and avoids the wrong sort of people entering Parliament – as has happened every three years since 1996 starting with Alemein Kopu.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
STV looks OK. I have a couple of thoughts though. Dump the racially selected seats. Then, introduce differential voting. That is to say, voters with 20 plus hours of paid work a week get two votes. Those with no work, or who are are on a benefit; or government employees get one vote. That way the non productive sector can’t vote itself an income at the expense of the productive sector.
cheers
David Prosser
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
And the wrong sort of people never entered Parliament before 1996?
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
“I like STV as a system all votes count. But for it to work correctly the Maori seats need to be abolished!!! As shown by the examples of the two previous elections the Maori Party or whatever party is most popular with Maori voters at the time (At present Maori Party, previously it was mostly Lab) has a huge advantage from the Maori seats. If the most popular party in the Maori seats is a minor party they will most likely always hold the balance of power. This would mean the members of the Maori roll decide the Govt of NZ.”
“And what if a bunch of general seats chose to move away from Labour and National? Would you get those banned too?”
Not at all, if the Maori party didn’t exist then most likely Labour would get the same advantage from the Maori seats. Having the seats is actually unfair on the other minor parties. The Maori party is highly likely to be most preferred in a seat where the voters are all Maori. Whereas the Green Party or Act do not have the advantage of a captive voter group, they can’t pick seven seats nationwide where all the voters are environmentalist’s, nor ACT where all the voters are white, higher earning professionals.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Tim Grosser is an excellent example of how a list MP can be used for the betterment of the country!
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
S Russell, yes they did but at least they were elected; despite all the criticism directed at the Social Credit people you at least have to respect the fact all 4 of them were elected in a specific constituency.
MMP has seen a vast number of unelected idiotic stupid people entering Parliament and running amok; let’s see how many votes that Hughes fellow gets in Ohariu next week, yet he returns to Parliament. Similar examples would be Hilary Calvert (although she is retiring), every NZ First MP except Winston and Peter Brown, the Alliance MPs (remember them?), United Future MPs – without exception these people obtain a few hundred votes (if that) but enter Parliament.
First past the post means that everyone has to win a seat, not just sign up 200 mates as members of their party in time for party list candidate selection.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
This analysis of STV misses a crucial point: above the line voting. And no one, from my quick glance at the comments, seems to have mentioned it either.
Above the line voting FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMS STV. In Australia 96% of people vote above the line. By voting above the line you are endorsing a party’s pre-ranked list of candidates. This means a very similar outcome to MMP.
If you take a fancy to STV cause you like proportionality then a good option would be voting to Keep MMP in Part A and for STV in Part B. Otherwise you could see a proportional system in MMP lose in 2014 to FPP
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
# DJP6-25 (636) Says:
November 14th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
STV looks OK. I have a couple of thoughts though. Dump the racially selected seats. Then, introduce differential voting. That is to say, voters with 20 plus hours of paid work a week get two votes. Those with no work, or who are are on a benefit; or government employees get one vote. That way the non productive sector can’t vote itself an income at the expense of the productive sector.
So some guy sweeping floors at Pak N Save gets two votes but the Chief Executive of a government department gets one? Who do you think is contributing more to society?
It is stupid of those on the right to refer to government as the “non productive sector”. The government does in fact produce things of value. Work is work and those who work for government invest their labour to produce systems which we value. The fact that they are funded through taxation does not make their work non productive. All it means is that the funding is non voluntary. But this does not make government work non productive.
It is also unwise to base an electoral system on criteria designed to produce an outcome you favour. That is a sure path to dictatorship because once you discard the principle that government should be representative of the people then you embrace the notion that the best system is the one which produces a government you like. And what more efficient way to do that then have a dictator who promises you the things you want?
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
# JamesS (27) Says:
November 14th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
S Russell, yes they did but at least they were elected; despite all the criticism directed at the Social Credit people you at least have to respect the fact all 4 of them were elected in a specific constituency.
MMP has seen a vast number of unelected idiotic stupid people entering Parliament and running amok; let’s see how many votes that Hughes fellow gets in Ohariu next week, yet he returns to Parliament. Similar examples would be Hilary Calvert (although she is retiring), every NZ First MP except Winston and Peter Brown, the Alliance MPs (remember them?), United Future MPs – without exception these people obtain a few hundred votes (if that) but enter Parliament.
First past the post means that everyone has to win a seat, not just sign up 200 mates as members of their party in time for party list candidate selection.
Do you consider Gareth Hughes an idiot because he won’t win an electorate seat or because he’s in the Green party?
What evidence is there that local electorates produce higher quality MPs? Phillip Field was an electorate MP. What does this prove, if anything?
Do electorate MPs really get closely scrutinized by the electorate? Or do people just vote for them because they’re National or Labour or part of whatever party the electorate favours?
In my view list MPs deserve to be there by virtue of the fact that their party chose them and the national electorate chose their party. The quality of these MPs depends more on the quality of their party and less on the type of electoral system, in my view at least.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 3:23 pm
Could someone explain to me the actual benefit of having electorate MPs in this day and age beyond some vague ‘local communities ‘ argument (kind of BS considering the parties decide who gets to run where anyway)? I hate to go all Thatcher on us but how many people actually feel a close affinity to the people in their electorate and feel the need to have local representation of this sort? i.e. Epsom (or wherever!) needs strong representation to look after Epsom issues? How many people actually interact meaningfully with their electorate MP anyway? I would have thought the percentage of the electorate that did was minuscule (someone correct me if I’m wrong here).
I’ve lived in a number of electorates in Auckland and I know that personally I only ever vote on the basis of the party I want to have controlling cabinet (i.e. the big picture stuff like tax, spending, health, education), not which random backbencher is going to be making up the numbers when it comes time to pass legislation.
Perhaps when we all lived in isolated villages and we actually needed to send someone to represent our local interests then having geographical representation made sense. Nowadays, I’m not sure it does. That’s what local politics is for surely?
Why not just have a fully proportional system. i.e. 100% list, no electorates. If people really are worried about having someone ‘local’ they can consult (complain!) to, you could just let each party nominate one of their MPs to be the local spokesperson for such and such a place (with the added advantage that if you were a green supporter, you could go to your local green rep, if national, national etc etc).
I don’t buy the ‘party bosses will have too much power’ argument. Surely this is the case under any system (i.e. the power to decide who gets to run in a safe seat is similar to the power to place someone high on the list). If parties are able to continually get voted into power even if they’ve stacked their list full of hacks and morons, then the problem is likely that we have too many MPs (and the useless ones can coast on the tails of the talented) otherwise they’d get punished at election time due to the government’s incompetence.
Someone please give me some reasons to bother using my second tick (pretend I don’t live in a safe seat)!!!!
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 5:04 pm
“they won’t be putting up a union hack who doesn’t even live there – instead they’ll be putting up someone known in their local community who has the ability to attract the extra votes needed.”
“Local community” doesn’t really apply though does it? Not with electorates that large.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 5:22 pm
STV is the means to diminish Greens – then once that is done removal of the Maori Party by ending their electorates completes the crushing of third parties.
STV is a system that requires around 15% (7 seat) to 25% (3 seat) of the vote to win representation.
It is way less proportional than MMP.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
My thoughts exactly DeepScience!
It seems very much to me that the idea of getting ‘local’ representation through an electorate system (be it FPP, STV, MMP or whatever) is something of a fiction.
Plus you only have to look at the dysfunctional US congress to see what happens when politicians are beholden to geographical-based interests rather than those of the country at large. How could you expect MPs to make good business decisions (i.e. in the interests of NZ inc) about, for example, funding the Wellesley-Puhoi highway vs an Auckland city rail loop vs transmission gully vs rebuilding ChCh etc when the people involved may well owe their careers to bringing home the bacon for their local constituents / industry / donors / etc?
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 7:16 pm
G4G is exactly right about the havoc local representatives have played on the US system. It results in incredible amounts of pork as local reps funnel govt. money to local projects to keep the votes coming, while at the same time of course decrying all the spending everyone else is doing. It’s the reason around 80-90% of Americans disapprove of Congress as a whole but overwhelmingly like their local congressman or Senator.
Another example of how this system fails the US. Defence contractors building air force bombers make sure that the parts for that bomber are made in dozens of different factories across the US. That way if Congress ever voted to kill the bomber programme as too expensive or unnecessary it would result in lost jobs in a dozens of different congressemen’s districts. They need to keep those jobs going so they ignore the national issue of spending tax money for no reason because they need local votes.
FPP is the worst possible option listed on the referendum. Preferential voting is just FPP-light and STV doesn’t sound much better. SM is also practically FPP and would result in a less democratic system. A two-party system would result from SM, PV or FPP so by default I’d have to choose STV as my second choice to MMP. A two-party system leaves far too many people without a real choice. I think many right-wingers only support FPP because it generally favours the cnetre-right parties. That’s partly why from 1949 to 1996 there was just 12 years of Labour-rule and 35-years under National.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 8:14 pm
There is only one system which is truly “democratic” but avoids all the problems of democracy – sortition. It’s strange that it’s never proposed or even discussed (or perhaps not so strange considering all the vested interests). Those educated about history know that the ancient Greeks (and later Romans, ancient England, Italian city states, medieval guilds, etc) did not use “democracy” for their administration – they used sortition of their citizens (with restricted franchise). Indeed we still use sortition today for the very important state power of decision making in justice – it’s called the jury.
Sortition has the following huge advantages:
- No elections or campaigning.
- No parties.
- No electorates but still dispersed representation around the country.
- Absolutely proportional unlike every other system.
- Truly representative of the population unlike every other system.
- No corruption, lobbying, etc.
- Absolutely fair and equal unlike every other system.
- No professional politicians at all.
- Every issue, law, spending, tax, treaty, etc must be debated on it’s merits – there is no whipping.
- True universal participation unlike every other system.
- All selected members actually come from the “real world” and know they will definitely have to return to it plus with a large selection we would have members and ministers in particular who actually know a bit about their portfolio.
For it to work I would suggest the following:
- The current franchise Electoral rolls are candidate ballots (might perhaps restrict franchise from Parliament and senior Civil Service staff for conflict reasons).
- Ballots are truly random via open mechanical means not pseudo-random electronic.
- Allotee’s balloted until say a pre-boule of 800 is reached (allotee’s can choose not to stand). This pre-boule of 800 assembles for say a three month training/examination/voir dire course. The pre-boule then selects say a final 150 Members of Boule (MB’s) from itself using some form of voting – say FPP popular majority.
- The MB term is fixed for five years. We could also have staggering of terms – say half being re-balloted every 2.5 years. We could also have recall on petition if a particularly dire MB made it (with number 151 etc from the pre-boule then being selected).
- The executive (cabinet) is constitutionally fixed at say 10 ministers with two associate ministers each. Ministers nominated and selected by open popular confidence vote (or similar) of the Boule. Regulatory power requires the approval of at least two executives for each portfolio. Committee members, heads, etc similarly nominated and elected.
- House rules, laws, supply, etc passed in a similar fashion to current parliament using simple majorities.
- MB’s would have electorate offices etc as per MP’s.
Some would say this is quite radical but actually it isn’t, could NZ again take a major world leading step in democracy/governance as we have in the past? Could we take action to avoid the terminal end stages of current democracy? Remember as William F. Buckley said “I would rather be governed by the first two hundred people in the Boston telephone directory than by two hundred members of the Harvard Varsity Fauclty/politicians/great & good, etc”.
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Ummm… yeah, but … nah!
Just… no!
Vote:November 14th, 2011 at 9:17 pm
All you people that think that STV is more representative or more democratic than mmp are thick as a pig-shit. How can a reprensetative system have allow for parties that gets 6.7% and 3.7% of the vote to only get 1.6 and 0.8% representation respectively. If you think STV is more representative than MMP then you are a moron.
And before you anti-mmp’ers say that STV allows you to get more electoral representation you are once again full of it. Being represented based on the area i live in is freaking pathetic. I want to be represented by what I believe in and I don’t give a toss if there is some mp that lives next door to me or on the other side of the country, as long as they push the beliefs I voted for. STV would allow for green party supporters in Epson to get next to no representation, and likewise ACT party supporters in Wigram would get nothing.
Politics shouldn’t be based on location, it should be based on beliefs (or in the case of swing-voters… greed).
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