Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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Legal Beagle: A little known story of…, in reply to Paul Campbell,
i’m confused do the Maori electorates represent all Maori? or the population that the Maori who choose the Maori voting option represent?
The Māori electorates represent the proportion of the Māori descent population who are on the Māori roll, including the same proportion of non-enrolled Māori.
If 55% of enrolled voters who are Māori are enrolled on the Māori roll, then 55% of people who are of Māori descent are represented through the Māori electorates.
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Legal Beagle: A little known story of…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
The reason that Stats doesn’t use the electoral figure for other uses is presumably that the electoral figure is based on a yes/no classification, whereas other Māori descent figures allow for more than two values, no?
No. The figure that is imputed is a census-derived figure. It takes the answer to the census question about Māori descent (yes/no/don't know/don't say) and assigns values of yes or no to the don't knows and don't says
They could do the same thing when releasing the final census information, and it would people a better idea of the true make-up of the country.
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Legal Beagle: A little known story of…, in reply to Paul Campbell,
Does the size of an electorate depend on the total number of people of any age – if say Stuart Island was suddenly populated by 25,000 (or whatever the appropriate number is) 13 year olds would it create an electorate in which no one was allowed to vote? (apart from the whole lord of the flies thing that would invariably result) …. or more seriously do populations that have bigger families get more representation (per voter)?
All electorates have approximately the same number of total people. If there was an area with ~58,000 13 year olds, they'd have an electorate in which no-one got to vote.
Populations with younger overall ages do indeed get more representation per voter at the electorate vote level. Of course, party strength in parliament under MMP is based on party votes, not electorate votes, so this doesn't effect the overall make-up of Parliament very much. Of course, electorates with lower numbers of voters (such as the Maori electorates) are more likely to cause an overhang.
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Legal Beagle: A little known story of…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I’d assume that Stats NZ’s mission in this is to provide an accurate number.
Yes, but an accurate number of what? Statistics NZ are charged with using "the total number of ordinarily resident persons of New Zealand Māori descent as determined by the last periodical census", the number they give out in their publicly-available census results is different.
This leaves the question: why is this better, more accurate number not used for anything else?
And in respect of Māori enrolment: why does this imputation increase the number of people of Māori descent, but not increase the number of people of Māori descent who are on the general roll? If we are counting people who don't know, or won't say they are Māori in the first stage of the calculation, why are we assuming there are more Māori for the next stage of the calculation?
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Legal Beagle: A little known story of…, in reply to Brent Jackson,
However, a few dozen people one way or the other is not going to affect boundaries as much as choosing appropriate rivers / roads to draw a line along.
Probably not a great difference usually, although at the margins I imagine it occasionally could. And, of course, nearly half-a-million people are having Māori descent (or lack of it) imputed to them in this way.
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Legal Beagle: A little known story of…, in reply to BenWilson,
Can you clarify this point? Are you saying that the way they answered the census will affect their ability to enrol on the Maori Roll? Or are you saying that being unable to answer is what excludes them, something you are then carrying forward when it comes time to decide which roll to be on?
The answer on the census does not effect the eligibility to enrol and take part in the Māori Option.
That turns on the question asked on enrolment forms:
Are you Māori?
With the information provided:
Only New Zealand Māori, or descendants of New Zealand Māori, may answer by ticking the "YES" circle. All other people must tick the "NO" circle.
It is of course possible that someone may answer the Māori descent question on the census differently from the Māori descent question on the enrolment form (although lying on either is an offence).
In respect of people who honestly select "don't know" on the census form, they are instructed to tick "no" on the enrolment form. Similarly, people who leave that question on the enrolment form blank are not recorded as being of Māori descent for electoral purposes (such as the Māori Option).
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Legal Beagle: A little known story of…, in reply to Brent Jackson,
It’s not used to allocate a single person one way or the other, but more to split groups one way and the other.
I believe that, for the purpose of drawing boundaries, it is actual individuals (albeit in an anonymised way) who are randomly assigned as either Māori descent, or non-Māori descent. It's peripheral to the points I'm making, but interesting to note that it's possible that boundaries could be different if a different set of random numbers was used.
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Legal Beagle: A little known story of…, in reply to Tim McKenzie,
I think they'll link to each other.
And they do! Thanks!
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Legal Beagle: A little known story of…, in reply to Tim McKenzie,
Are you writing the code for the links in HTML?
I copy pasted from a Word document, and was pleasantly surprised it worked at all.
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Interestingly, because people can now complete census forms on-line (and a lot did), this may change the scope of the calculation - on paper forms, it was possible to tick two boxes for the Māori descent option. On the on-line form it wasn't possible to select two options (can someone confirm whether you could leave questions on the on-line form blank?)