Kiwiblog

Eric Crampton, an economist at Canterbury University, has done a fascinating study based on 2005 NZ Election Study behaviour.

His 33 page study looks at political ignorance. His abstract explains:

Large proportions of the electorate can best be described as politically ignorant. If casting a competent vote requires some basic knowledge of the incumbent’s identity, the workings of the political system, one’s own policy preferences and the policy preferences of the main candidates, many voters cannot vote competently.

Wittman (1989) suggests that, if ignorance is unbiased, overall results will be determined by informed voters as the ignorant cancel each other out. Lupia and McCubbins (1998) provides a mechanism whereby voters with little information can take cues from more informed colleagues in order to vote as if they had the requisite information.

Using data from a uniquely useful dataset, the 2005 New Zealand Election Survey, I show that both mechanisms fail. Political ignorance is not unbiased: rather, it strongly predicts policy and political party preferences after correcting for the demographic correlates of ignorance. Moreover, membership in the kinds of organizations held to allow the ignorant to overcome their deficiencies fails to improve outcomes. Voter ignorance remains a very serious problem.

So how does Crampton decide if someone is politically ignorant? He had five criteria:

1. An inability to correctly place National, Labour and United Future relative to each other on the political spectrum. 40% could not place them correctly as National to right of Labour, United Future to left of National and United Future to right of Labour.
2. Not understanding MMP, such as thinking the electorate vote is more important than the party vote in determining the composition of Parliament, not knowing the threshold of 5%/1 seat, for thinking FPP is more likely to have the party with the most votes have the most seats, and for inconsistencies such as saying they prefer there be only two parties in Parliament but support MMP.
3. Not knowing the term of Parliament, ot knowing enrolment to vote is compulsory and not knowing permament residents can vote (only 28% knew this).
4. Not knowing what parties formed the 2002-05 (then current) Government.
5. Not knowing the name and party affiliation of their local MP

You can quibble over individual criteria, but overall there is little doubt that those who fail most of these criteria, are not making much of an informed vote. Eric talks on his blog about the criteria here.

An economic ignorance score is also calculated based on their responses to economic questions.

So who is more or less likely to be politically ignorant. The figures below are proportions of a standard deviation, so the higher positive it is, the more politically ignorant that demographic was, and a negative figure means they are less likely to be politically ignorant:

• Follow political news on Internet -0.068
• Active member of Church -0.117
• University educated -.369
• Farming -.377
• on DPB +.149
• Left Wing -0.302
• Thought Govt was good +0.09

So those who actively identify as left wing are far less likely to be politically ignorant, but those who though the 2002-05 Labour/Progressive Government was good were more likely to be politically ignorant.

And how about voting preferences:

In the party support specifications, I restricted the sample to those reporting having voted. When they get to the polls, the ignorant are significantly more likely to support the Labour Party (4% increase in predicted probability for a standard deviation increase in ignorance) and significantly less likely to support the Green party (1% decrease in predicted probability) and United Future (0.5% decrease in predicted probability).

There are lots of otehr interesting facts too:

Other interesting findings include that voters with internet access are less likely to vote but more likely to support National, Act and United Future, that very active church members are about 8% less likely to support National and 5% more likely to support United Future, that Labour’s play for the student vote with zero percent student loans seems not to have paid off as neither current nor former university students were more likely to support Labour in 2005, that Maori were 21.5% less likely to support National in a somewhat racially-charged election, that New Zealand First drew disproportionate support both from superannuitants and from those on family assistance, that those on high incomes weren’t particularly likely to support any party but that the divorced were almost 9% less likely to support Labour and 5% more likely to support the Greens.

And Eric has a useful conclusion:

While I have shown that ignorance causes bias, it would be far too hasty to say that ignorant Kiwis are generally biased towards the New Zealand Labour Party. Results here could simply reflect incumbency bias. Alternatively, the pattern could well be explained under rational expectations where the Labour Party promised to undertake more regulatory measures to protect people from the consequences of their choices, and the politically ignorant could perhaps be more likely to be in need of such protection. Isolation of incumbency effects versus biases towards the Labour Party would require analysis of prior years of the New Zealand Election Survey when Labour was not the incumbent and will be the subject of future work.

I for one very much look forward to the future work – the 2008 and hopefuly the 2011 elections.

iPredict has launched three new stocks:

1. Benson.Pope – will pay out $1 if David Benson-Pope stands as a non Labour candidate in the 2008 general election. Has launched at 80c.
2. US.Obama08 – will pay out of $1 if Obama is elected President. Launched at 49.5c
3. US.McCain08 – will pay out of $1 if McCain is elected President. Launched at 49.5c

I’d say Benson.Pope gives a pretty good opportunity to make some money.

I was curious as to how the four elections we have had under MMP, would have gone under SM. It was relatively simple to redo the St Lague formula to calculate this, so below are who each election would have turned out under SM:

In 1996, National and NZ First went into a coalition with a 61/120 majority. Under SM this is still a likely outcome but they would have had 64 seats instead of 61. NZ First were not that keen to go with Labour if they were dependent on the Alliance and Labour/NZF was 56 MPs so this problem still existed.

Overall it is hard to see a different outcome under SM.

In 1999 Labour and the Alliance formed a minority Government with 59 seats out of 120. They were backed by the Greens to give them 66/120 on supply and confidence.

Now under SM Labour could have governed alone. It is possible they may have chosen to go still do a Coalition with the Alliance, but I suspect they would have been treated like the Greens – supporting players outside Government. Ironically if this had been the case, it is likely the Alliance would not have disintegrated on the Afghanistan issue. If they had not been in Government they could have oppossed troops, like the Greens did. I suspect Anderton’s ego made a bust up with Harre and McCarten inevitable at some stage, but perhaps not as early as 2002.

In 2002, Labour formed a minority Government with Progressive having 54/120 seats. They had confidence and supply from United and Greens giving them a total of 71 seats. Under SM they could have governed alone.

In 2005, Labour formed a majority Government with Progressives, NZ First and United having 61/120 seats. They also had agreement to abstain on confidence and supply from the Greens and a non formal abstention from the Maori Party meaning they could win confidence votes 61 to 50. National tried to put a Government together also which was in theory possible with National, ACT, United Future, and Maori Party having 57 seats but they could not get NZ First which would have given them 64.

Under SM, Labour, Progressive, NZ First and United Future would only total 59 seats so Labour would have been a minority Government relying on abstentions from Green and Maori Party. Arguably more likely is Clark may have gone left instead of centrist and done a Labour, Progressive, Green, Maori coalition which would give her 62 seats.

What options did National have, if this was SM? On 51 seats they need 10 to make 61. Assume ACT and United Future and they are at 55 seats. Maori Party would give them 60 but they would still be one seat short.

So under SM, the Alliance may have never disintegrated, and the Greens may have got their long desired coalition agreement in 2005, as Clark would have been unable to get a majority just with NZ First and United.

And in no case would there have been a different major party in Government.

In his IFR column yesterday hard core leftie Chris Trotter said:

New Zealand should probably hope for a National victory, too.

So does this mean Chris has seen the light and repented? Well, not quite. Chris goes on to explain:

A defeat for the Right in November would be all too likely to encourage conservatism’s most dim-witted and violent adherents to take Von Clausewitz at his word and “continue politics by other means”.

So Chris is just saying people should vote National, because if you don’t we’re all going to start rioting in the streets.

This is one of the reasons why People Power do harm beyond the odd smashed window. They allow Chris to paint a picture of thousands of violent rightists just waiting to go on the rampage if National should lose the election. It’s about as likely as Tame Iti voting ACT.

Earlier in the column, Chris covers the events of 2005 election reasonably fairly:

However, the Right’s conviction that they were robbed of victory in 2005 is not entirely fanciful. The money the Labour Party used to pay for Helen Clark’s infamous “pledge card” came from a public fund which at least two responsible state officials had warned it not to use. That arguably illegal decision freed-up the half-million dollars the party needed to bank-roll its South Auckland strategy. That Labour was able to edge past National in the final hours of election night was due, in no small measure, to campaign over-spending.

The Right’s rage was not abated when the final election returns showed a narrow majority of votes had been cast for the Centre-Right. The combined total of votes for the parties of the Centre-Left (Labour, Progressive, Green) was 1,082,281 (48.1%) while the Centre-Right (National, Act, NZ First, United Future) secured 1,115,257 (49.6%).

Chris hasn’t classified the Maori Party as Centre-Right or Centre-Left. Also I get slightly different percentages as there were a total of 2,275,629 valid votes.  Maybe Chris is going off total votes for parties which made it into Parliament which is 2,245,801.  Let’s see – that might be it as that gives the CR 49.7% and CL 48.2%.

Incidentially while I have heard many people rage about the illegal overspending of some $400K to $800K by Labour, I’ve not heard many claim that the CR got more votes than the CL. I certainly tend to regard the Maori Party as more CL than CR, which puts the CL marginally ahead of the CR.  Even if you add Destiny into the CR vote that gives you 1,129,467 for the CR and 1,130,544 for the CL – almost a tie – only 1,077 votes in it.