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November 10, 2005 10:21am by David Farrar

Party Vote Map

The NZ Herald has done this nice map showing party vote results. It does show the city/rural divide.

Hat Tip: Kiwi Jew Pundit

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Comment20

Election 2005

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Comments (20)

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Michael

This city/rural division phenomona is bizzare. Nationals support has always been in rural areas, it’s not something new. Furthermore the difference in Auckland – our biggest city was less than 1% if I am correct. The Nats won Rotorua, Napier, Hamilton, New Plymouth and Tauranga (and Hamilton and Tauranga are two of the fastest growing cities – they are getting younger and wealthier)

Sure Labour came easily first in Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch, but the city/rural divide is just an easy headline for the media. It doesn’t really stand up to much scrutiny.
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November 10, 2005 10:30am
Ben Wilson

It’s interesting nonetheless. National is the farmer’s party. Not really surprising, since they always have been and if they want to keep losing elections they always will be.

Farmers often make the mistake of thinking that since they own most of the land in NZ they should have most of the say. Unfortunately for them, NZ is a democracy, not a feudal system, and their votes are not worth more. If they worked a little harder on showing the city dwellers how important their opinions and contributions are, and a little less hard on trying to entrench their already massive privilege, then this stark divide would soften, I’m sure.
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November 10, 2005 10:53am
Mark

Post sweeping generalisations when you have actually met a farmer Ben.
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November 10, 2005 11:13am
Anna

City dwellers often make the mistake of thinking that since they have most of the power in terms of owning companies or having attended university then writing the policies that apply to the rest of the country that they are more intelligent and important and deserve a greater say. Unfortunatly for them NZ is a democracy, where higher education and a propensity for lattes does not make their votes worth more. If they worked a little harder on showing the farmers why they wish to impose their opinions and contributions on rural matters they often know little about, and a little less hard on trying to close rural schools and force farms to open up to the public, then this stark divide would soften, I’m sure.
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November 10, 2005 11:21am
Ben Wilson

I have met many, which is where my generalizations come from. An especially poignant memory was being told by one rich waikato landowner when I was 13 that my parents were wankers because they had a beach house on Waiheke on ‘prime land’. What a toss. But you’re right, most farmers respect democracy, I’m sure.
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November 10, 2005 11:24am
Ben Wilson

Nice, Anna. I apologize for my generalizations. We both have a point, I think.
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November 10, 2005 11:29am
Temp

Hang on, does our democracy give votes to real people or blades of grass? If the latter then the map has validity. Otherwise, colouring in blank spaces blue is as about as meaningful as a Durex survey.
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November 10, 2005 11:42am
stan

bloody Nelson makes me ashamed
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November 10, 2005 12:03pm
Gaz

Maybe we should have a National government for the provinces and a Labour one for the cities.
BTW National is not the Farmer’s party, it seems to be more of a provincial party. Towns like Taupo, New Plymouth and Rotorua are not full of farmers, but they do happen to have a lot more small businesses and less companies with large numbers of employees and are therefore more likely to have National tendencies, as Labour tends to screw small businesses more than larger ones.
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November 10, 2005 12:09pm
Scott Higham

These maps are meaningless really, as all it demonstrates is that in larger geographic areas National won the party vote.

Big deal.

It doesnt really explain the rural/urban split very well, as if you hone in on an urban area you find a fairly even split between National and Labour voters.

The old “farmers vote National” and “workers vote Labour” is redundant. IIRC in 2002 farmers were more likely to have voted Labour.

Voting patterns can also be assessed on income, age, education levels, occupation, family background, socio-economic considerations, and the “mood of the day”.

All of these things happen regardless of whether you are an urban or liberal voter – making the map here meaningless and simplistic.

Scott.
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November 10, 2005 12:23pm
Krimsonlake

All that blue is quite simply terrifying!:-(

It seems that I will be staying within city limits for the rest of my natural life.
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November 10, 2005 1:32pm
mark

I’ve seen american versions of that map. All it seems to do is try to give give the impression that the vote of people who live in sparsly populated areas should count for more than the vote of people who live in desnsely populate areas.

It would be interesting to see that map distorted to take into account the population living in the regions, like this:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/2004/carto/nov06c.html
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November 10, 2005 1:50pm
Ben Wilson

I wouldn’t get too scared – it’s an FPP kinda blue anyway. It doesn’t mean more than 50% of people party voted nats in the country. It means more people there voted Nats than Labour. You can see that from the percentages, which are under 50% in most cases. Which means more than 50% voted for something else. I’m guessing they probably voted purple or black rather than green or red, but I think a big blue map isn’t really telling the whole truth.
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November 10, 2005 1:54pm
Ryan

DPF, isn’t it a tad hypocritical to rail against the abuse of copyright by someone enterprising individual who has posted premium content on a blog when you go ahead and post Herald graphics?

Yesterday you said, “…I am very respectful of not doing activities which illegally threaten revenuue.”

The Herald has two principal forms of online revenue; advertising dervied from vistation and subscription fees for premium content.

Who needs to visit the Herald site when you post their graphics, and extend the opportunity for punters to add more insightful analysis than Tapa Misa and her ilk?

Well done.
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November 10, 2005 2:26pm
David Farrar

If I had found the graphic via the NZH site, I would link to it there. However despite 20 minutes of looking I could not locate it. I only know it came from there originally as KJP’s graphic was hosted on media.apn.co.nz which is the Herald’s parent company.

I can’t actually swear it has appeared on the NZH site – I just assume it has. I did try to find a story to link to. As I link to 30+ NZH stories a week, I don’t think you can seriously say I don’t do my best in respecting their copyright.
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November 10, 2005 2:32pm
DC

As no electorates are 0%/100% either way, I think it would be much more meaningful if someone took the time to work out the appropriate colour of each electorate based on the % share of red and blue.

You’d find that almost all of NZ is just kinda purple… and I think that’s a lot stronger as a statement. (And no, this is not some plug for United)

Any headlines trying to show “a nation divided” is just a meaningless media beat-up trying to pit country mouse against city mouse.
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November 10, 2005 2:33pm
mark

I’ve seen american versions of that map. All it seems to do is try to give give the impression that the vote of people who live in sparsly populated areas should count for more than the vote of people who live in desnsely populate areas.

Having different shades of colour according to how ‘blue’ or ‘red’ a region is would seem sensible too.

It would be interesting to see that map distorted to take into account the population living in the regions, like this:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/2004/carto/nov06c.html
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November 10, 2005 2:44pm
Geoffrey

There are some nicer distorted maps than the ones on electoral-vote.com. Check these ones out:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

Using shades of purple for everything works for the US, but unfortunately it won’t work for MMP; there will be too many colours mixed together, so it would be too hard to tell the party vote percentages at a glance.
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November 10, 2005 3:21pm
Rob Salmond

Geoffrey – If you were willing to assume that (a) there are two basic alternatives in NZ: a government including Labour or a government including National; and – optionally and additionally – (b) you can take it as read that Green votes are left votes and ACT votea are right votes; then you can use the purple colours strategy that Gastner et al at UM use.

Just create a “left vote” variable for each electorate comprising Labour+Green, and a “right vote” variable comprising National+ACT, and fill in the electorates (or booths if possible) in shades of purple (even split=pure purple, pure right=blue, pure left=red, and intermediate values induce the fancy colour palette). Personally, I prefer the solution where 70% or more for a grouping earns the pure colour – makes for a clearer picture to the naked eye. I think this would make for a far more nuanced and accurate picture than the one initially presented here.

(On the other hand, the cartograms are silly – we already know that Labour+Green got more votes than Nationl+ACT, so we don’t need a butchered map-esque thing to tell us just that and not much more.)
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November 10, 2005 3:45pm
Sinner

Actually, I think it shows the *opposite* of a big divide.

All the numbers lie between 40 and 60 percent – mostly around 50. The grand divide is just an artifact of the colour coding.

We’re all FPP purple really.
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November 10, 2005 8:57pm

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