Inside the mind of the confused Jordan Williams of Vote for Change: "I believe that democracy is not about representation"

Jordan Williams is not opposed to voting for MMP in certain circumstances

Last time I looked, we lived in a representative democracy, that is to say, a type of democracy in which citizens delegate authority to elected representatives. These representatives sit in a House of Representatives and democratically represent us. We democratically elect them.

But don’t tell former Green Party member Jordan Williams that. The spokesperson for anti-MMP group Vote for Change thinks that democracy is about something other than representation, namely accountability, and he explained it to us briefly at a meeting tonight. At least, he tried to.

Basically he thinks that MMP is about representation and First Past the Post is about accountability – and given that the Supplementary Member electoral system is so similar to FPP, he thinks that it is about accountability too, and therefore democratic, but we are not sure to what extent because Supplementary Member has ugly list seats that he thinks are the “fundamental flaw of MMP”, but not SM.

Williams thinks list seats are so bad, he says that “a vote for MMP is a vote for shutting down debate” despite the fact that it Is a vote to opening up the debate as to what type of MMP system we would like.

But he thinks democracy is about accountability, which is why he likes First Past the Post, says he prefers Supplementary Member, and thinks that a select committee system under these two electoral systems – essentially a rubber stamping exercise - is about accountability – as in unbridled power.

So it is no wonder that Vote for Change, which now has just five supportershas not decided on which electoral system it is supporting, even though most prefer Supplementary Member.

It has a spokesperson that is supposed to oppose MMP, but the confusing thing is that, despite opposing MMP, Williams says if there was a referendum at the 2014 election between MMP and STV ( Single Transferable Vote) he may even vote MMP (the system he says shuts down debate) even though STV ( a system he refuses to debate benefits of) has no list seats. Williams is undecided. “I don’t know which way I’d vote,” he says.

More about → Inside the mind of the confused Jordan Williams of Vote for Change: "I believe that democracy is not about representation"

What’s happening with the public education campaign on the voting system

As most will know, the Electoral Commission is charged with letting people know about the upcoming referendum on MMP and have done a nationwide mailout on the basics of the four voting systems up for grabs, videos and TV ads. As is always the case, vested interest groups are providing their slant – the most prominent being the Vote for MMP and the Vote for Change groups.

The media and blogosphere have been involved also, with a mixture of fact and misinformation. Graeme Edgeler has been offering a fact-checking service to correct any misinformation.

Some of the discussion is ambigious – for example Vote for Change spokesperson Jordan Williams says he supports a fair electoral system –particularly not a system like MMP where MPs come in off the list after losing their seat – while personally supporting an alternative to MMP that does just that, while at the same time refusing to say what his group publicly supports.

While much of the discussion is political punditry, the voters in Te Tai Tokerau and Taumaranui probably couldn’t care less provide they get their benefits each week. It is these people that are unlikely to vote and it is these people that are to be communicated with via a public communication campaign so that they can make an informed decision and get out and vote..

Yet the main thrust of the Electoral Commission’s campaign will not kick in until six weeks before the election – that’s three months away and right in the middle of the Rugby World Cup final stages. What happens if people believe that if they vote for MMP in the first referendum question it is pointless voting for one of the four alternatives in the second question? What if they don’t want to keep MMP and vote for First Past the Post in the second referendum question because they’d rather have fewer list seats in parliament, or because they’d rather see a reformed version of MMP and don’t know it may be reviewed – or believe it will be reviewed by the government, or reviewed without public input. What if they voted Supplementary Member on the understanding it will be close to a 70/50 list/electorate split - believing it to be a good middle ground between FPP and MMP?

What it will come down to is informed people such as Edgeler, and hopefully the Electoral Commission, to fact check inaccuracies, miscommunication and misinterpretation - but will these messages get through to the wider public in time to make an informed decision come election day?

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On opposing an electoral system

I quite like MMP. And I believe that, in an open democracy, people should be allowed to support MMP, or oppose it - and join related groups. Running a campaign or standing for office, however, is a different matter and background checks are often done.

Martyn Bradbury’s outing of Alex Fogerty, a founding member of anti-MMP group Vote for Change, as a man who has supported white supremist websites in the past, is a case of googling a whole bunch of members of a group that is on the other side of the political fence to dig dirt and publicise it – purely because of their political beliefs. It’s the sort of stuff we have come to expect from Pete Hodgson.

I was aware of Fogerty’s links. I can use Google too. I just didn’t think it was worthwhile publicising these links.

Fogerty, who has links to the National Party, has now been told to resign from Vote for Change. He had no role in the organisation apart from signing up as a founding member. Bradbury incorrectly maintained he had an “active” role. While his name has been deleted from the Vote for Change Website, he is still a founding member and his name is on the documents on the Company Office's website. [ update So is former Waitakere mayor Bob Harvey but he has resigned as well - but is still listed as a supporter on the Vote for Change web site.]

Dunedin North’s Labour candidate David Clark is more shocked that Fogerty is Facebook friends with Dunedin-based National list MP Michael Woodhouse. (They are not now). He wants an explanation. Presumably he’d like to know why Fogerty is facebook friends with Ceila Wade-Brown also, and the rest of his friends.

It’s fair to say I abhor white supremist views, and disagree with Fogerty’s opinions on most things, but I still maintain he should be able to voice political opinions on an electoral system and join groups that encompass these views.

However groups such as Vote for Change that know they are to receive media attention should ensure that their founding members withstand public scrutiny.

The Campaign for MMP has not commented on this – they’d rather play the ball, not the man.

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More on that referendum on the voting system

Sometimes I wish I was a journalist, even if it was to clarify answers given by Jordan Williams. Well I am a journalist, but not for radio or TV.

Also, just to clarify, there are two questions in the referendum on the electoral system, to be held at the general election.You will be asked whether you want to retain MMP or change to another system. Then you`ll be asked which of four other voting systems to choose from should voters opt for change.

You can answer both questions, or one question – i.e you can answer the second question even if you don’t answer the first one, and vice versa. That’s important. If MMP is kept, it will be reformed, the second question will become irrelevant and there`ll be no 2014 referendum.

Vote for Change are banking on there being a referendum in 2014 between MMP and the favoured alternative. Spokesperson Jordan Williams was on TVNZ today. He said:

NZers should tick to change the system this election, so we actually get to see what this reformed MMP would look like. .. It would be a disaster if NZers vote to keep MMP and we hand the power over to the politicians to reform it.

Two points:
1. Politicians will not be reforming MMP – the Electoral Commission will. The Government will decide whether to adopt its recommendations.
2. There is no guarantee we will “actually get to see what the reformed MMP will look like” if we tick to change the system as the government may not hold a 2014 referendum.What if the government decides to stick with the the chosen 2011 alternative for the 2014 election should a majority decide to ditch MMP? MMP will be gone.What if the alternative system is chosen in 2014? There’s a better chance to see MMP reformed (and sooner) if we tick to keep it in 2011.

So in sum, if MMP is retained in 2011, it is after that we will get to see “what this reformed MMP would look like". If it is not, the favoured system as voted in the second referendum question should run off against MMP in a referendum in 2014. If MMP loses again, we don’t get to see MMP reformed, if MMP wins, we do.

If you want to see MMP reformed, vote for it in 2011.Got that?

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Voting for electoral system change

Peter Shirtcliffe may be 80, but he has a lot of say in this new anti MMP “Vote for Change” group, and spokesperson Jordan Williams is merely helping him along a bit.

The group's rules show the committee has just two people: spokesperson Jordan Williams and Peter Shirtcliffe. However Simon Lusk is also involved.This committee holds office until the next Annual General meeting of the society – usually held in May - six months after the election. Perhaps it`ll be a post-mortem on the referendum – that’s if the group has not already been wound up.

If members want to call a special general meeting it can be up to four months before it is held, but if Shirtcliffe and Williams want to hold one, they can do so within 14 days of a committee meeting.

The group’s founding members include Peter Shirtcliffe, Aaron Hape, Annabel Young, Chris Parkin, Emma Daken and Michael Bassett – most signed up by Jordan Williams – all who support one of two electoral systems. The good news about this group is that anyone can apply to join. The bad news is that the couple on the committee can remove any member, or refuse any prospective member, for pretty much any reason – like intending to vote for change to STV. Their decision is final. Only certain "votes for change" are permitted.

Now back to the electoral systems and the possible review of MMP. The “Vote for Change” group believes the review process is flawed as it is up to the politicians to “fix” MMP. Furthermore they’ve said that those who support a review of MMP are really admitting that MMP is “flawed”.

On Morning Report, Williams said that his group is about discussing “what of the four alternative” electoral systems should replace MMP. Yet the group refuses to discuss the benefits of Preferential Voting and the STV systems.

So in reality, the group is about “which of two alternative” electoral systems – First Past the Post or Supplementary Member - should be preferred, with the result being Supplementary Member, as decreed. Those who support any other system could be deemed as acting “contrary to the aims of the society”, as their vote for change is not what Williams and Shirtcliffe propose.

As both Williams and Shirtcliffe have come out in support of Supplementary Member (SM), if other members disagree with an impending announcement to support the SM electoral system, because they support First Past the Post, will that affect their membership, will they be coerced to support SM - or will they be told to shut up.

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Vote for Change – to what?

A new anti MMP campaign has gone online today. It’s called Vote for change – a group that wants a fairer electoral system than MMP. But it is unclear what they want to change to as they have not endorsed a particular alternative to MMP.

That is because some of its founding members can’t agree on whether they like the First Past The Post (FPP) or the Supplementary Member (SM) electoral system.

So what do they want?

We want an electoral system that provides certainty for voters, rather than forcing Kiwis to wait for post-election negotiations. Vote for Change wants governments to be held to what they promised, not what parties manage to negotiate in coalition agreements.

It appears they want a government without a coalition and haven’t thought through how their support for either FPP or SM assists governments to be held to what they promised. It’s also clear that they don’t want MMP

MMP allows List MPs who have been voted out by their local electorates to sneak back into Parliament on party lists.

So they don’t particularly like a lot of list MPs – if they want a reduction of list MPs they`ll support Supplementary Member, in the hope that a one party government can be formed

Under MMP, MPs need to listen to party bosses to keep list rankings, instead of listening to their electorates.

That won’t change with Supplementary Member, as those who rely on list places will be listening to their bosses more so they don’t miss out altogether, let alone worry about where on the list they`ll be ranked.

Like I said, this group have not specified a decision on which electoral system to support. The group says that once they have a “substantial membership base Vote for Change will announce its decision” - a decision to support the Supplementary Member system.

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The 2011 referendum on the electoral system

Here's a few thoughts on the referendum on the electoral (voting) system.

At the general election there will be a referendum giving you the chance to have your say on the voting system. The Electoral Commission has been working on its publicity campaign and is to post out information on each electoral system starting today.

On election day you`ll be given two voting papers. One will be the standard voting paper, the other one will be a purple voting paper and you`ll be asked two questions:
• The first question asks whether you want to keep MMP (our current voting system) or whether you want to change to another voting system.
• The second question asks which of four other voting systems you would choose if New Zealand decides to change from MMP.

The four alternative voting systems you can choose from are:

First Past the Post (FPP) - the person with the highest plurality of votes in each of the 120 electorates wins – i.e. a candidate can win if he gets fewer than half of the votes, provided he gets more than the others.

Preferential Vote (PV) - the person with the highest majority of votes in each electorate wins, as the candidate must get over 50 percent of the votes to be elected.

Single Transferable Vote(STV) MPs are elected by receiving a minimum number of votes (called a quota – based on the number of votes in each electorate and the number of MPs to be elected in each electorate).

Supplementary Member (SM) - Candidates in 90 electorates are elected the same way as in First Past the Post. The remaining 30 seats in the 120-member Parliament are called supplementary seats. MPs are elected to these seats from political party lists, the same way list MPs are currently under MMP.

If at least half of voters opt to keep MMP, the second question is irrelevant and the Electoral Commission will review MMP in 2012 to recommend, with public input, any changes that should be made to the way it works.

If more than half the voters opt to change the voting system, Parliament will decide if there will be another Referendum in 2014 to choose between MMP and the alternative voting system that gets the most support in the second question in the 2011 Referendum.

The following outlines the split of electorates under the different systems – and how each system compares with the others:
Under MMP we’d have :
16 South lsland electorates
47 North Island electorates
7 Maori electorates
The remaining 50 will be list MPs proportionally allocated from closed political party lists.

Supplementary Member will lead to more North Island, South Island and Maori electorate MPs as there will be fewer list MPs. There are:
21 South Island general electorates
60 North Island general electorates
9 Maori electorates

Once all candidates who receive the highest number of votes are elected, the remaining 30 seats in the 120-member Parliament are called supplementary seats. MPs are proportionally allocated these seats from closed political party lists and are likely to be called List MPs. This system is sometimes called First Past the Post “in drag” as the government outcome is almost identical - and is why many politicos who support National like this system

First Past the Post and Preferential Voting will have even more North and South Island electorate and more Maori electorate MPs as there are no list MPs. We’d have:
•27 South Island general electorates
•81 North Island general electorates
•12 Maori electorates

So given that under FPP and PV, we’d have the same number of electorates in each island and the same number of Maori electorates, what’s the difference between the two systems?

The difference is in the way each MP is elected.

Under FPP, the person with the highest plurality of votes in each electorate wins; under PV, that MP must get over 50 percent of the votes to be elected– and here’s how they do it.

Candidates are preferentially ranked ( 1,2,3 etc) and a candidate who gets more than half of all the first preference votes (that is votes marked "1") wins – as would happen under the other electoral systems..

But it is where no candidate gets more than half the first preference votes that things change. If that was to happen under FPP and MMP, that candidate with the highest number of votes will be elected. However under PV, as candidates are ranked, the candidate with the fewest number of “1” votes is eliminated and their votes go to the candidates each voter ranked next.

This process is repeated until one candidate has more than half the votes.

The Single Transferable Vote system will have the same spread of MPs as FPP and PV but fewer electorates as follows:
• About 6 South Island general electorates with a total of 27 MPs
• About 18 North Island general electorates with a total of 81 MPs
• About 4 Maori electorates with total of 12 MPs

So each electorate will have between 3-5 constituent MPs as, with FPP and PV, there are no list MPs.

Where STV differs with the other electoral systems is that there are fewer electorates ,but up to five people can be elected in each electorate, and parties can have two candidates elected from the same electorate, so if you are a National supporter in a Labour constituency you may not appreciate ending up with two Labour MPs, a Green MP and a NZ First MP. Like PV, voters still rank individual candidates ( 1, 2, 3, etc) , but MPs are elected by receiving a minimum number of votes (called a quota).

Candidates who reach the quota from first preference votes are elected. As there are electorate seats to fill after first preference votes are counted, a two-step process follows.

First, votes the elected candidates received beyond the quota are transferred to the candidates ranked next on those votes. Candidates who then reach the quota are elected.

Second, if there are still electorate seats to fill, the lowest polling candidate is eliminated and their votes are transferred to the unelected candidates ranked next on those votes.

This two-step process is repeated until all the seats are filled.
So, if the country wants to keep MMP, then all we need to worry about is how to change it – i.e whether the threshold remains at 5%, whether MPs who lose their seats can come in off a safe list seat, whether list MPs should also stand as candidates for a constituency etc. If voters decide to change to another electoral system it’s a long drawn out process which will then need electorate boundary divisions quickly drawn up once we know what system is chosen.

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Why some campaigners prefer Supplementary Member over any alternative to MMP

Stuff has reported that the Right has MMP in its sights, and has named National - linked bloggers David Farrar and Cameron Slater as part of the discussions. ACT has yet to decide what electoral system it supports, but it's leader Don Brash publicly supports SM ( Supplementary Member).

Cameron Slater ( aka WhaleOil) does not particularly like list MPs, and does not like First Past The Post (FPP). He prefers the Preferential Voting (PV) system. He was pleased that Maggie Barry won her selection for National on the North Shore on the first ballot ( meaning she got more than 50 percent of the vote), using a similar system to the preferential voting system. [update: the difference to PV is that the lowest polling candidate is dropped and rather than the candidate with the fewest number of votes being eliminated and votes reallocated, the lowest polling candidate is dropped and a new ballot held until a clear winner emerges].

David Farrar calls the campaign a pro SM campaign. Farrar prefers the SM system over FPP, thinks PV is too complicated ( despite telling a select committee of his desire for a preferential ballot to rank electoral systems on the upcoming referendum on the electoral system). He thinks SM and STV (Single Transferable Vote) have some merit">. But he prefers a run off between MMP and SM to decide our electoral system, despite considering that SM is "significantly disproportional".

So both Farrar and Slater, along with campaign leaders have discounted STV and PV as they are complicated and difficult to explain. They don't want to got back to FPP as they quite like that people such as Don Brash can get into Parliament without winning a constituency. So if any electoral system is to run off with MMP (if a majority of voters do not want MMP), it should be the Supplementary Member System .

Hence the campaign - to get that run-off.

Tomorrow or the next day, I`ll be looking at the five electoral systems in more detail, for those who think SM, STV ,FPP,PV and MMP are just strange groupings of letters.

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Why Don Brash supports the Supplementary Member electoral system

New Act leader Don Brash today announced his support of the Supplementary Member (SM) electoral system - and no one should be surprised. It's the only electoral system that gets him what he wants.

Although he doesn’t like MMP much, he doesn’t want to go back to First Past the Post either. Entry to Parliament via the list is effortless if you have party backing for a high list place, as Brash did under National. He thinks Supplementary Member should be able to let smaller parties be represented in Parliament, and likes the fact that the list has let people like himself into parliament, but prefers that there are fewer list place. He welcomes under SM, that there will be fewer places, and that minor parties on the Left would get disproportionately fewer of them.

That is because under SM, only the list seats are proportional, and the electoral system guarantees a huge majority for a party that wins both a lot of electorates and a large share of the party vote. MMP is a proportional representation system.

Brash does not support proportional representation, or the recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System in 1986, that rejected supplementary member. While he wants to see limited and disproportionate power of minor parties in Parliament, he is aware that, under current polling, changing to SM won’t make too much difference to Act if it wins Epsom.

Not so the Greens. If Act were to win Epsom under SM, it would have about the same number of list MPs under SM and MMP, whereas if the the Greens were to get 10 percent, they'd have a proportionately bigger reduction of MP numbers under SM compared to MMP.

Brash also noted that it was not fair that in 1981, Social Credit got 21 per cent of the vote but only two seats. It is also not fair that Social Credit would have got proportionally fewer list seats than other parties under Supplementary Member. Of course, the electoral system is a factor on how people vote, so the 1981 vote may have been slightly different under a MMP or SM electoral system.

Actually, in both 1978 and 1981, the winning party, National, got more than half of the seats with less than half the vote and that was the catalyst behind the electoral system change to MMP.

Here's an illustration from The Standard blog that compares the MMP vote to what the SM vote would have been in both 1999 and 2008.
As you can see, the number of Alliance MP's would have halved under SM in 1999, and the Greens,while having a higher share of the vote in 2008, would have the same number of seats after both elections.

According to the Greens, had the 1996 election been held under Supplementary Member with 100 seats, the 35 list seats would have also been unevenly distributed, National and Labour would have had about the same number of seats they would have in a 120 member parliament, to the detriment of the smaller parties, who overall would have had proportionally fewer. NZ First elevated its share of the vote due to its hold on the Maori seats.

Don Brash wants to reduce Maori representation – which will be less under SM and FPP - and then scrap the Maori seats.

That’s why Brash likes Supplementary Member and wants the Maori seats gone. Under First Past the Post he would never have been an MP as he admitted he would not have resigned from the Reserve Bank to be selected as a candidate.

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Don’t blame MMP for Labour’s problems

The NZ Herald has said that Louisa Wall is the most suitable candidate to replace Darren Hughes on Labour’s list. Why? Not because of any of her qualities, but because she is the next on the party list who will also be on the list prior to the 2011 election. Wall is several places below Judith Tizard, the next on the list.

Had Pansy Wong been a list MP, Conway Powell would have been an MP upon her resignation as he is next on the National party list. Does that mean he is the most suitable candidate, or would former Act MP Stephen Franks and former United Future MP Marc Alexander, the next two on the list, be more suitable, given their parliamentary experience?

Legislation does not determine which MP comes into parliament based on their suitability, but on their position in the party list. If an MP is deemed unsuitable or unwanted – as Tizard obviously is – it is not because of the vagaries of MMP, as the Herald would have you believe, it is due to an ill thought out list selection.

Labour, and the Herald, may well say Louisa Wall intends to resume her political career if she is leapfrogged by the party into Parliament. But she will stay in Parliament as long as Tizard would if she does not get a low enough list place to get into Parliament after the election. Labour has not indicated that Wall will be high enough on the list for her to return in November.

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MMP is better for New Zealand than every other electoral system. Here’s why.

warning: longer than usual post
The upcoming referendum on the electoral system next year will end up being a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) walkover, or a choice between two electoral systems: MMP and either First Past the Post (FPP), or Supplementary Member (SM). Either way MMP should remain and then be modified.

Incidentally, the ‘first past the post’ label is completely misleading because there is no fixed winning post. The system was not designed for national elections, and is unlikely to enhance democratic accountability when a significant proportion of the population wishes to vote for parties other than National and Labour. Under FPP, what you need to win a local seat is just a ‘plurality’, namely more votes than anyone else. So the more parties compete in each seat, the lower the winning ‘post’ gets, and the greater the likelihood that most of the the voting public will vote for a party other than the governing party. Consequently political scientists call this system ‘plurality rule’, a much more accurate label.

MMP is proportional in that proportionality extends to all elected members – both on the list and through constituents. The SM electoral system - a bastardised FPP system which was comprehensively rejected in the 1992 referendum - has all of the claimed disadvantages of MMP, such as the status of list MPs, plus the disadvantages of FPP, including parties getting most of the seats with a minority of the votes. SM allows for a relatively small number of list MPs which “top up” the electorate MPs.

The big difference between the SM and MMP lists is that, under MMP the list is used to offset the distortions to proportionality that are inherent in the FPP electorate system, as the party vote only determines the composition of the list seats. Under MMP the party vote determines the composition of parliament. SM, however, uses the list to reinforce those distortions, and this list gives token representation to minor parties. List MPs are way outnumbered by electorate MPs, with list MPs only providing the proportionality. This means that a smaller percentage of list MPs would lead to decreased proportionality than is currently the case, and single party government will be the norm, as it is under FPP.

The advantage of a mixed-member proportional system arises because voters can indicate a preference for a candidate without supporting that candidate's party. A good candidate in an unpopular party has a stronger chance of election.

As an electoral system, SM is closer to FPP than MMP. FPP will only survive as a functioning electoral system if a high majority of people in the electorate support the two main parties, and the voters for these parties have sufficient confidence in their party to form a single party government. In most cases since 1996, SM would have produced the same government outcome as FPP, based on current voting, although minor parties would have had fewer MPs. In 1996 SM, under a 90/30 electorate/list top-up split, as proposed by the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System, would have generated the same government outcome due top NZ First’s capture of the Maori seats. But in 1999, in one of the lowest election turnouts, Labour’s share of the seats was over two percent higher than its share of the party vote and had NZ First and the Greens not crossed the threshold, that share would have been higher.

Supplementary Member is likely to lead to Māori being disproportionately represented in parliament. While it won’t affect how Maori electorate seats are elected, due to split voting it may influence allocation of supplementary seats. Overall proportionality would not exist as the “top-up seats” are likely to be as low as 30 percent of total parliamentary seats. Alternative Vote is likely to rely on second choice preferences, as is STV; FPP is majoritarian in the extreme, is disproportionate, and is likely to “waste” votes. Perhaps this was among the reasons why the Royal Commission on the Electoral System, in its 1996 report Towards a Better Democracy, recommended that MMP was ‘to be preferred to all other systems’. FPP would lead to winners being over represented and losers under represented. This is particularly the case in the Maori seats, where, for example, in 1990, Labour won all the electorates with 65.4% of the vote. More than one in five Maori electorate voters voted for Mana Motuhake, which won no seats. If voters behaved the same way, the party would not be under represented as its share of the nationwide vote, nor would it have won a supplementary seat under SM either, as its overall vote was only 0.6% ( which is also under the MMP 5% threshold).

Single Transferable Vote (STV), in single member districts, as we have in New Zealand, is better than FPP, but not as proportional as MMP. Under this system candidates are ranked and the candidate with the lowest number of votes drops out and votes are reallocated among the remaining candidates and so on until a candidate gets the majority of votes. It is unclear whether this would lead to single party or coalition governments, but it would require a national top up to guarantee full proportionality between the larger parties.This system was rejected by the Royal Commission in 1986.

MMP is the better bet provided the proportion of list seats does not go below 40% - i.e. 48 seats in a house of 120. Currently under MMP it is 70/50.When discussing the choices between electoral systems, the discussion should not be which of the electoral systems - FPP, STV, MMP, SM etc – is preferable. Rather it should be whether one supports single party government or multi-party government – or whether one considers that the party with the most votes should get the most seats. Most supporters of single party government will probably prefer FPP. But when they realise that single party governments are less likely to do what the people want and are less likely to keep their promises, FPP support starts to diminish among those that value democratic ideals. Furthermore, as FPP was never designed for national elections it cannot guarantee that the party with the most votes will get the most seats. Indeed, in 1978 and 1981, the winning party, National, got more than half of the seats with less than half the vote. In 1981, National governed with just 38.8% of the vote. Had these elections been held under a Supplementary Member system (SM), with that vote, this would have still been the case.

There has been some discussion over recent years regarding the 1990 election. That year National got 67 seats for just 48% of the vote, and Labour got just 29 seats, as New Labour got the other one. That was more disproportionate than Labour’s 1972 result. That year Labour also won 48% of the vote but got 63% of the seats and Social Credit got its lowest ever election result (6.7%). Just three minor parties have since got a higher share of the party vote, all whom had leaders with parliamentary experience. Similarly, in 1951, the UK Labour Party lost the election despite outpolling the Conservatives and winning a majority of the popular vote. In 1974, Labour won the election despite the Conservatives gaining most of the votes. So FPP fails to ensure that the party with the most votes gets the most seats. FPP is not a fair system when 21% of the electorate can vote for one party and be represented by fewer than 2% of the members of parliament, as did Social Credit in 1981.

In fact, of four electoral systems - FPP, STV, SM, and Preferential Voting (PV), not one guarantees that the party with the most votes gets the most seats because some seats are allocated to parties who have not won them based on their share of the vote. The non-proportional preferential voting system maintains the basics of the Westminster system intact, but allows second-place votes to count towards determining the winner if no party wins more than fifty percent of the vote. FFP is likely to foster majoritarian extremes. Only MMP guarantees that the party with the most votes gets the most seats, and without these extremes.

While MMP makes it easier for a greater number of parties to enter parliament, it is not without problems. In the 2008 election, NZ First got more votes than Act, United Future and the Progressives combined, yet NZ First was out of Parliament because it failed to have its threshold effectively lowered by securing a constituency seat to gain representation. The others remained in Parliament purely because they did. All four parties- along with the Māori Party, polled less than the 5% threshold. Had the MMP threshold been 4%, NZ First would have relied on the threshold for their parliamentary existence, as would have the Christian Coalition when it gained 4.3% in 1996.

Open lists; or either lowering or removal of the threshold – which would prevent the situation where Act got fewer party votes than NZ First, who got no seats - is preferable to introducing a new electoral system such as SM. Also, as the population increases, this will lead to a greater number of electorate seats – and a fewer number of list seats, if the number of South Island electorate seats continues to be pegged at 16. Currently there are 52 list seats ( down from 55 in 1996) and 70 electorates (up from 65 in 1996) – including the seven Māori electorates which currently provide a two seat overhang.

But the fact remains: To the average voter, MMP, STV, FPP, PV and SM are not electoral systems, they are merely letters without much meaning. Prime Minister John Key has said that any change to the electoral system requires a major advertising campaign. "We can't ask people to make constitutional changes without understanding what the options are."

Politics is often seen as two sections: the left and the right. Act will go with National and the Greens with Labour. Many other PR systems are like this. New Zealand is different as we have centre parties that can go either way - United Future and even the Maori Party. So the left/right splits are not so relevant, as we have seen with New Zealand First when they held the balance of power in 1996, and chose National to govern when most thought Labour would have been picked.

There are a lot of matters on our electoral system options that need to be understood. The task of making sure any possible changes are understood will fall on the Electoral Commission.

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Constitutional review

The Government has finally announced details of its constitutional review.

The review will include matters such as the size of Parliament, the length of the electoral term, Maori representation, the role of the Treaty of Waitangi and whether New Zealand needs a written constitution. Bill English and Pita Sharples will lead the review in consultation with a cross-party reference group of MPs. They will write to all party leaders in the next few days and ask them to nominate a representative for the cross party reference group.

This will be followed by a public consultation process, with a break during the second half of next year for the MMP referendum and general election.

The whole process will be completed in 2013. This is after the next Maori Electoral Option and when we know what our electoral system will be after the referenda. It is also after the Electoral Commission’s review of MMP should we decide to stick with it. The Government then has six months to respond to the final report . This is five and a half years after the agreement to undertake such a review.

The only part of this process that will occur before the 2011 election is one of clarifying the issues and developing strategy for engagement. So the public won’t be involved until after the election.

The following will be part of the review:

Electoral matters including:
• The size of Parliament.
• The length of terms of Parliament and whether or not the term should be fixed.
• The size and number of electorates, including the method for calculating size.
• Electoral integrity legislation.

Crown-Maori relationship matters including:
• Maori representation including the Maori Electoral Option, Maori electoral participation and Maori seats in Parliament and local government.
• The role of the Treaty of Waitangi within New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements.

Other constitutional matters
• Whether New Zealand should have a written constitution.
• Bill of Rights issues.

What won’t be part of the review is a discussion on binding referenda, or whether NZ should become a republic.

Any proposals to reform elements of the constitutional framework will only be decided after securing broad cross-party agreement in the House or the majority support of voters at a referendum.

The Cabinet paper is here. Details of the last review are here.

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High pitched covert dog-whistling politics

Next year we are voting on the electoral system. Jon Key has further commented that recent difficulties with ACT and the Māori Party may have undermined confidence in MMP.

That implies that Key wants people to think that MMP has something to do with the state of the Māori Party and ACT, particularly relations between these smaller parties and National. Furthermore, a change to another system would go some way into restoring confidence in our electoral; system. Key says:

My instincts have been that when you see issues around smaller parties it tends to undermine the confidence in MMP as a system

It’s dogwhistling, as every single Maori Party, United Future and Progressive Party MP is an electorate MP, whereas MMP is list-based. It appears Key would prefer to see fewer parties represented in parliament. The only way to ensure this happens is to change the electoral system. That's because If the electoral system was changed to either FPP, Supplementary Member, STV, or Preferential voting, there is no gurantee that the party with the most votes will get the most seats, as with MMP.

If John Key wants that, he should say so. If he doesn't, he should direct his comments accordingly and suggest that changes should be made to the system, not the system itself. But I suspect Key still wants a change to Supplementary Member because it is a nicer way of reverting back to FPP. That's because in most cases since 1996, Supplementary Member would have produced the same government outcome as FPP, although minor parties would have had fewer MPs.

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Key wonders if people will blame MMP for ACTs problems

John Key speaks on ACT’s problems.

I'm wondering whether the public might say 'look, very small parties are consuming quite a lot of time' and maybe they will take the view that MMP fundamentally isn't working so well.

Of course Key didn’t mention MMP when List MP Richard Worth blew up in his face, so one can only assume he is trying to deflate blame and cover for Rodney Hide. If there was ever a reason to vote MMP in the referendum next year this is it, because MMP will then be reviewed. Perhaps they`ll decide not to let MPs in off the list who failed to win their seats – MPs like Richard Worth. Perhaps they`ll look at the one MP rule so that multiple MPs – or fewer of them – can’t get into parliament on the back of an MP. Perhaps they`ll look at changing the five percent threshold, or ensure list MPs resign from parliament after resigning from their party they got elected to, even if they want to form a new party as did former Alliance MP Alamein Kopu .

Justice Minister Simon Power has said that voters will be well informed about the options of how MMP can be modified, before a referendum is held on the electoral system at next year’s election.

The alternative to MMP is white males in suits running the country like Muldoon did.

It’s weird that Key implies that MMP isn’t working well – but the anti-smacking legislation is working perfectly well, because it was designed not to work at all. MMP works well – if Garrett leaves Parliament, we won’t need an expensive election. But if fewer MPs were let in off the back of an elected representative, or if list MPs were made to resign from parliament after quitting their party, he wouldn’t have had the option of leaving.

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Electoral Legislation Select Committee

National MP Amy Adams is the first first-term MP in the current Parliament to chair a select committee. She's the newly appointed chair of the new Electoral Legislation Select Committee, which has MPs from all political parties.It has been set up to look at the bill that will empower the 2011 referendum on the Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) voting system, as well as to implement electoral finance reforms. Other members are Jim Anderton, John Boscawen, Lianne Dalziel, Peter Dunne, Pete Hodgson., Darren Hughes, Rahui Katene, Hekia Parata, Paul Quinn, Chris Tremain, and Metiria Turia.

I realise most of you are already really bored with this post so I`ll stop now.

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Electoral referendum bill

The Electoral Referendum Bill was introduced today, and provides for a referendum on MMP. Should 50% of voters choose MMP, MMP will be reviewed. Specifically:

- the 5% threshold for a party to obtain list seats:
- the overhang, namely the increase in the number of seats in Parliament that occurs if a party's constituency candidates win more seats than the party would be entitled to as a result of the party vote:
- dual candidacy, namely the capacity of a person to be both a constituency candidate and a list candidate, and for a list member of Parliament to seek election in a by-election:
- a party's ability to determine the order of candidates on its party list and the inability of voters to rank list candidates in order of preference:
- the effect of population change on the ratio of electorate seats to list seats and the maintenance of proportionality:

But not the Māori seats or the number of MPs.

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MMP preferred to any other electoral system

Good news for MMP today, with a UMR poll out today finding 48 percent are in favour of retaining MMP, with 40 percent in favour of changing the system to... well, they weren't sure.

The poll also revealed that people do not like unnecessary referenda. When they were told the upcoming referendum on MMP was going to cost $20 million, 60 percent didn't want one and 32 percent did. That means some people want to ditch MMP - but not through a referendum at more than three times the cost of the anti-smacking referendum. The survey results and graphs are here.

Also, most felt they knew a "fair bit" about MMP in 2000, that dropped to 45% now.That's because 13% knew " a lot" about MMP. increasing to 19% today. So, for those who don't know much, they need to be educated so they can make an informed assessment on how our current electoral system works.

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MMP referendum to be held at the 2011 election

Stuff reports: that the first referendum on the MMP voting system will be held with the 2011 general election. The timeline is here.Although the proposed plan is pretty much the way I said it should be done,in terms of process, there is no mention of any attempts to address gripes within MMP , such as looking at the 5 percent threshold or mix of general or list seats within MMP before the first referendum.

"The first referendum will ask two questions: The first will ask voters if they wish to change the voting system from MMP. The second will ask what alternative voting system they would prefer, from a list of options.

And what if they wish to retain MMP with a lower threshold,a different mix of list and electorate MPs, and a change to the one seat threshold? Do we get to have a say on that? As Mai Chen says, the stability of recent MMP governments suggests that while voters may want to contemplate significant tweaking of the MMP system, they are less likely to clamour for fundamental change involving a switch to another electoral system.

But that is what they are being asked to do even though they dont want to.

Mr Power said Cabinet would make further decisions over the next few months, including drafting the questions, alternate electoral systems and how that referendum will be conducted.

"If a majority of voters opt for a change from MMP, there will be a second referendum at the 2014 general election. This will be a contest between MMP and the alternative voting system that receives the most votes in the first referendum. It will be binding.

So, it's promoted as a change from MMP. How reactionary! I'd prefer to choose an electoral system I want, not to choose between the lesser of two options that aren't as good as a revamped MMP system.
Previous Cabinet consideration** Cabinet decision on MMP process

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Labour and reconfiguring breaking MMP

Post updated Monday
Did I hear correctly that Labour is discussing, in the context of electoral reform, whether the electorate/list seat mix should be reconfigured by reducing the numbers of list MPs, and replacing them with electorate MPs?

If so,the Greens will not be supporting this "SM/MMP" measure.

Here's why.

The Greens, who rely on list seats, will lose have a lower proportionate number of list MPs. Labour and National will of course lose more list MPs, but they'd be replaced by electorate MPs, probably from the land of the "wrong white crowd". Fewer women, fewer Maori, and the potential for overhang within major parties if the number of list MPs is too low.

update Actually its worse than that. I've since been following the discussion at Red Alert, after I got wind of the proposal and felt it stunk to high heaven. Delegates at the Labour Party conference were discussing the reduction of the size of electorates, by increasing electorate numbers, leading to the decrease in the number of list MPs. Figures of 90 electorates and 30 list MPs have been suggested. There will not be the "potential" for overhang, it will be a reality, and I can't understand why Labour is even suggesting this. Lianne Dalziel is even suggesting that such a move will retain proportionality! Granted, she did mention an 80/40 split, but if the minor parties were to get a substantial share of the vote she`d be wrong in saying the proposal retains proportionality.

In reality the proposal could perversely benefit Labour by giving the party a handful of overhang seats to make up for the lack of list seats.Even more so than it would benefit National. I think it is a worse proposal than the Supplementary Member system that the party opposes. Assuming the intended size of Parliament remains constant, overhangs will be a reality if the minor parties, with a system of more than 80 electorate seats, get a large combined vote of over 30 percent - and they did in 2002, in fact they got a bigger vote than National.

This proposal is something that should be rejected outright in any discussion of our electoral system. Back to the drawing board, folks - and this time, engage your brains.

And I see from this mornings paper that Labour also wants to prevent minor parties that get one electorate seat from getting more than one seat unless it gets more than 5 percent of the party vote. Another move intended to screw minor parties of the Right. Either that, or Labour simply gets its ideas from the media.

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Why National supports Supplementary Member and the Greens oppose it

Heres how the New Zealand House of Representatives would have looked under the Supplementary Member electoral system, with the current seat numbers in brackets for comparison.


New Zealand National Party - 65 seats (58)
New Zealand Labour Party - 40 seats (43)
Māori Party -6 seats (5)
Green Party - 4 seats (9)
Act New Zealand - 3 seats (5)
Jim Anderton's Progressive - 1 seat (1)
United Future New Zealand - 1 seat (1)

National would have governed alone, may as well have had FPP, with no bridle on executive power.

If the five percent threshold was to be removed:
Under SM, only National and Labour would be affected, both losing a seat to New Zealand First. Under MMP, National would have 3 fewer seats, Labour 2 , the Greens 1 , with Act getting an extra seat. Three additional parties will enter parliament: New Zealand First with 5 seats, with Bill and Ben and the Kiwi Parties gaining one seat each.

Had the 2008 election been under SM, Act would have still have got more seats than NZ First- even without a threshold - and with 10,000 fewer votes.

So, does anyone else think that, in the context of discussing electoral systems, a reduction of the MMP threshold would be preferable to the adoption of the SM system, with or without a threshold.

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