Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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Legal Beagle: Infrequently asked questions, in reply to Keir Leslie,
In other words, this policy won’t do anything, so what does it matter?
Because giving people the option increases public acceptance of MMP, because even if it doesn't alter the result itself, it alters the legitimacy of the result. List MPs become elected, rather than unelected in the eyes of the average voter.
Its the same reason why I think PV is a vast improvement over FPP, even though it isn't proportional, or make much of a difference to the result. When someone is elected with 65% of people voting against them (e.g. Peter Dunne), their mandate is in question. When you use PV, we can be sure they're acceptable to a majority. Under PV, instances of where the candidate ahead on first preferences doesn't win (e.g. Kerry Prendergast) are relatively rare, but that it sometimes happens, ad that even when it doesn't, you know the person elected has an actual mandate
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Legal Beagle: Infrequently asked questions, in reply to Keir Leslie,
How does that survive voter re-ordering of the list? What about the effect of the almost inevitable Auckland-centrism of nationally ranked lists on a party trying to use the list to maintain geographic diversity?
1. International experience shows most people will adopt the party’s ranking, which will be given substantial weight.
2. [made up numbers follow] 28% of voters are in Auckland. 28% of a perfect list’s candidates will be from Auckland, the 28% of Auckland voters will have lots of Auckland candidates to choose between if local representation is important to them and will split their votes between them. 3% of voters are from the bottom of the South Island, a perfect list will have only 3% of its candidates from the bottom of the South Island. The 3% of voters in the bottom of the South Island will have few candidates to split their vote between if favouring local representation, so will perform about as well as the average Auckland candidate.But take the Greens’ choice to impose pretty strict gender balance on their list. How does that survive voter re-ordering of the list?
It is up to voters whom they elect. It will survive if the green party advertising to vote for the list as ordered is heeded. If not, well, the people have spoken, and the green party people to whom gender balance is important will know to nominate more awesome male/female candidates in the future.
As an alternative way of looking at things, all those women who vote for parties with male-dominated lists will not be able to influence those party’s choices to ensure that while they get the policies they want, they’ll be able to get female representation as well!
But mostly, most people won’t bother to reorder the list, and the party will get to choose anyway.
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Legal Beagle: Infrequently asked questions, in reply to Keir Leslie,
The Party has a particular list that it endorses. It doesn’t endorse other lists. Why should the Party have to campaign for a list it doesn’t want?
It wouldn't be campaigning for a list. It would be campaigning for party votes. If there's someone they don't want to be elected to Parliament, they wouldn't nominate them as a party candidate.
The Green Party wants Holly Walker to be a member of Parliament. The members of the Green Party want, collectively, Holly Walker to be a member of Parliament. They will have said to every voter in the country "We think Holly Walker is awesome and should be a member of Parliament, if you want the Green Party to have lots of members of Parliament, give us your party vote, if you agree with us that Holly Walker should be a member of Parliament, then you can push her up the list. If, instead, you really really think James Shaw should be a member of Parliament, push him up the list instead. We think they're all awesome, and recommend each of them to you as wonderful awesome people who should be in Parliament, but how many there are, and exactly which ones they are is up to you."
And, of course, if the Green Party has decided that they want James Shaw to be a member of Parliament, but if an only if 14 specified others are there as well, there's nothing to stop the Green Party asking for people to vote particularly people in from its list, either directly "we think Metiria Turei is the most awesome of all the awesome people we recommend so choose her top" or indirectly "please party vote green, but don't reorder our list, because we know these people pretty well, and have thought about this pretty hard, and these people are already in the order of most awesome to 30th most awesome."
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Legal Beagle: The New Zealand Election Tax, in reply to Michael Homer,
Why 5% then? If it’s to discourage candidates who aren’t seriously contesting the electorate, why not 30%? 40%?
The winner quite frequently doesn't get 40%!
Under the Electoral Act 1956, you got your (initially ten pound) deposit back if you got at least one-quarter of the vote of the winning candidate.
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Legal Beagle: Infrequently asked questions, in reply to Tim McKenzie,
When you say “Maori Party voters”, do you mean people who cast their party vote for that party, or people who cast their electorate vote for a candidate from that party?
The same thing I'd mean if I said "Labour Party voters". Maori Party voters are people who vote for the Maori Party. People who vote for the Labour Party are Labour Party voters. In the Maori electorates, some Labour Party voters split their votes and choose a Maori Party candidate.
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Legal Beagle: The New Zealand Election Tax, in reply to NBH,
I’d definitely be expecting the Conservative Party to top 0.5%, and so get at least their list deposit back, and from the way I’ve heard people talking about Rodney, Colin Craig is likely to get over 5% of the candidate vote there. I’d be picking about $1300, maybe up to $1600
Yep. Too many numbers going through my head. As I was writing that comment I was assuming list $500 + Craig $300, I imagine because I was thinking about 500 party members or something like that. $1300 or $1600 seems right.
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Legal Beagle: The New Zealand Election Tax, in reply to Angela,
I don’t think the public is well served by the television media in that I think people want to see debate, preferably live debate, open to all parties. A situation in which the elite major parties are excused and only expected to talk to each other is not good enough.
Yeah. I wasn't a fan of that call. Even if the National and Labour leader think three head-to-head debates in four weeks is enough, there's no reason they couldn't just send someone else, like the deputy leaders, to a multi-party debate, although they can get a bit messy.
One of the things I like about the US Primary system is that there are a large number of debates between people whom people could possibly vote for. A debate between National and Labour and The Greens and ACT, and United Future and Bill and Ben and whoever involves quite a bit of filler for someone who is trying to make up their mind between National, ACT and New Zealand First, or choosing between Labour, the Greens and the Maori Party.
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Legal Beagle: The New Zealand Election Tax, in reply to Raymond A Francis,
Even a hundred would take some organising for a first time movement but on the other hand we do not want to make it too easy to fill the ballot with nut-cases
They would. Some people have criticised the ease of registering a party in New Zealand: you only need 500 members. I think I'm fine with that, but an extra incentive to have a few more wouldn't go amiss.
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Legal Beagle: The New Zealand Election Tax, in reply to izogi,
Is the $1000 in addition to $300 for each candidate on the list? Or is it a $1000 flat rate for submitting a list of any length?
Sorry, could have been more clear: $300 per electorate. $1000 per list (of whatever length).
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Legal Beagle: The New Zealand Election Tax, in reply to NBH,
Ooh, do I get to fact check you Graeme? :-) I just did a very quick calculation using the Electoral Commission’s (appalling formatted) summary of the 2008 election table here, and as far as I can tell the only party outside Parliament that had to deposit anything even near this was the Kiwi Party (who paid $11,800).
I was thinking of the Conservative Party, which has nominated 52 electorate candidates and one list, for $16,600 all up. If they get back much more than $800, I'll be surprised.
The other non-Parliamentary parties’ deposits would have been between $5800 (the Libz) and $1000 (Bill and Ben, who were list only).
Bill and Ben got their deposit back.