MMP lulz

[adonis]

Originally Posted by Farmer Joe

I quite like STV but I'm not sure the average voter would get it.

STV is only proportional when voting for individual seats. Voting in a parliament using STV would only be a slight upgrade from FPP.

OFC you could get really tricky and use STV to choose electorate seats, AND have a party vote, but then you'd still get problems with overhang...

Nah, fuckit, scrap the electorate seats, reduce the number of MP's to 100, and drop the threshhold to 2%. Maybe then people will actually pay attention to local elections when they want local representation.

[erentz]

I wonder if the call for FPP isn't a bit reactionary, and whether the problems, if properly considered couldn't be solved while retaining proportional representation. Some thoughts below.

Personally I'm +1 for scrapping the electorate seats and beef up the use of local/regional councils a bit to deal with local issues at a local level. Or has anyone got some good reasons for electorate seats? Only reason I can see for them is to allow independants to stand (will get to that later).

- Voting becomes simple again (not that MMP is complicated, but some people seem stuck on one person one vote, and overhangs, and OMG stuff like that).
- Electorate seats are a waste of time.
- Maintains some level of proportional representation. (Which I favour because whatever happens it ensures that no single party can run amok, and I'm part of a extremist-fringe-greenie-terrorist group that wants to make existence horrible by clamping down on your shower pressure.)

Implement STV for even fairer democracy, ensuring that no one's vote is wasted. If you voted, you're represented by a party or person in parliament simple as that. The use of STV also means that people can really vote for the party they feel represents them, even if they suspect they may not pass their threshold. In itself that will free up peoples choices and open up the field to many other parties. If that party doesn't pass their threshold their vote isn't wasted, it transfers to their second or third or so on choice.

The relevance of this? Well look at all those who voted for NZ First and other parties that didn't get in, where would their vote have gone had they _known_ that their party wasn't going to get in, quite possibly labour? These people have no representation in the NZ parliament. This could result in very different outcomes in some races. It's only fair that every vote counts.

Now about the independants and thresholds.

Option 1. All MPs must represent a party, and have a list. The threshold can stay where it is, or be raised (say to 10%) to ensure there are fewer parties in parliament (a concern for some evidently). The pro is that now it doesn't matter so much as STV ensures people get some level of representation that they voted fore. The negatives of this are that a lot of parties are personalities, with just one guy gathering a lot of votes for potentially useless people that ride in on the list. This is a good reason for raising it beyond the current 5% to say 10%, its a bigger test for them, ensuring that hopefully they've been around longer and built more experience. This problem exists now anyway. The biggest con is probably that under this system there'd be no way for the NZ parliament to have independants, is this good or bad? Some independants should be able to get in, they may turn out to be great future leaders, who knows. But if they need 5 or 10% to get in they're not independants.

Option 2. To solve this you could just reduce the threshold, to allow smaller parties, effectively the independants like Jim Andertson's progressives, to get their seats and not be removed from NZ's politics altogether. Problem is, Bill & Ben, and the like, also getting the single 1% to get a seat. So this is probably a very bad move.

Option 3. This adds complexity but it's just a lose thought, feel free to rip to shreds. Perhaps Raise the threshold to say 10% as above so that the parliament will be made of fewer, larger hopefully more serious groups (like some people on here appear to be expressing they want). However, to permit the independants to have an entry into parliament (IMO important because I think independants are worthwhile addition), you allow them to stand as independants. They don't appear on the ballot as a party, but as just their name. Under the STV system, as soon as they accumulate enough to enter parliament STV kicks in to transfer their remaining votes to the second choices.

Difficulty/complexity with this is how you select which votes apply to the independant, and which ones to transfer. You could using computers quite easily do it proportionally which would be fair, though this is mathematical, and therefore is magical to much of the population, resulting in silly conspiracies on talk back (oh dear)


So on balance, I like the idea of removing the electorate seats, raising the threshold to 10%, using STV, and option 3 to allow entry to independants.

Interested in hearing constructed thoughts.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Farmer Joe

I quite like STV but I'm not sure the average voter would get it.

Also I think as long as NZ has one 'house' of representatives MMP is a good option. Under FPP the leading party could do wtf they wanted for then entire period.

From a pure principle POV, I dislike the reality of "wasted votes" under MMP.

[Draco T Bastard]

Originally Posted by Farmer Joe

I quite like STV but I'm not sure the average voter would get it.

STV depends upon everyone actually ranking the candidates. Not everyone will do this and there has been media campaigns telling people not to do so to ensure their preferred candidate. These campaigns were paid for and run by right leaning people - I haven't seen a single right leaning person in the media yet that actually supports democracy.

Basically, STV will have a distorted proportionality due to the fact that not everyone will rank the candidates and that distortion can be influenced by media campaigns. Not great for electing the government which is supposed to be a true representation of the electorate.


Threshold in MMP:
The threshold can be lowered but you can't get rid of it. Without a threshold then a party with 0.1% of the vote would need to have a seat in parliament which is highly impractical. In our 120 seat parliament slightly over 0.8% of the vote would equal one seat and so that would have to be the minimum. I do think it should be lowered but only down to about 3% or 4%.

The threshold also needs to apply to all parties equally. What I mean by this is that if a party wins an electorate seat they don't get to bring in any party members from the list unless they have also crossed the threshold.

Originally Posted by erentz

Personally I'm +1 for scrapping the electorate seats and beef up the use of local/regional councils a bit to deal with local issues at a local level. Or has anyone got some good reasons for electorate seats? Only reason I can see for them is to allow independants to stand (will get to that later).

Independent candidates are the only reason that I can see for retaining electorate seats. If you're concerned with something at a local level then you have an entire local council to talk to. If at a national level then you communicate with the appropriate minister. I'm of two minds about them - Good because it does allow independents in parliament (even though the chances of them getting a seat are minuscule) and bad because because it can and does screw up the proportionality (esp. the Maori seats).

Originally Posted by Ab

From a pure principle POV, I dislike the reality of "wasted votes" under MMP.

IIRC, in the 1993 election Labour got ~35% and National got ~31% of the total vote. National won the election and Labour was in opposition. The other ~34% didn't even have a representative in parliament. Yes, there are wasted votes under MMP but it's nowhere near as bad as it was under FPP. There will be wasted votes under any voting system but significantly less under a proportional system and the more proportional the less wastage.

We don't need a referendum on MMP - it really is the best voting system there is ATM but we do need to review our present implementation of it and make some adjustments.




PS. I think that if a list MP leaves the party that they are in then they should also be kicked out of parliament because the people who voted for that party will no longer have the representation that they voted for if they stay in.

[Ab]

Originally Posted by Draco T Bastard

PS. I think that if a list MP leaves the party that they are in then they should also be kicked out of parliament because the people who voted for that party will no longer have the representation that they voted for if they stay in.

Totally agree.

[adonis]

Originally Posted by Ab

Totally agree.

Indeed.

[Golden Teapot]

So, someone who stands their ground, and tries to deliver what they promised their electorate, and by so doing falls afowl of their party and is cast aside, should in turn be tossed out of parliment?

If you're ultra-left and dictatorial in your outlook, as Draco is, then I can see why this outcome is favoured. Dictatorial governements don't have room for desent - best to get rid of the nay-sayers and get another yes-boy.

Sure, there have been examples of rotten-eggs staying around. However, there have been examples of the opposite too.

The really smelly rotten eggs have tended to be left leaning. Why? Corrupt people are more likely to succeed in pulling-one-over the less well educated electorates; where the baseline vote tend to be for the left (for some reason). So, perahaps this really isn't an issue for the next six years or so?

[Beccara]

Originally Posted by Draco T Bastard

PS. I think that if a list MP leaves the party that they are in then they should also be kicked out of parliament because the people who voted for that party will no longer have the representation that they voted for if they stay in.

[erentz]

Originally Posted by Draco T Bastard

STV depends upon everyone actually ranking the candidates...

This is a misconception. With STV if you only want to vote for one party, you only need to list one party. Essentially in that case what you're saying is that if your party won't get enough votes to get in you're putting a tick in the abstaining box.

E.g. under MMP without STV, if you had the fore knowledge that your party (e.g. NZ First) wasn't going to break the threshold, and your attitude was because of that you weren't going to bother voting, then that's exactly equivalent.

Similarly, if you're attitude is, 1 = Greens, 2 = Labour, what you're saying is I want Greens, but if they don't break the threshold then I want my vote to transfer to labour, and I can't be bothered going any further because I really don't expect Labour not to break the threshold. Or maybe you don't care in that case.

However, _what_ is bad is that some people list something like:

1 = Jim Anderton
2 = Greens
3 = National

Intending to show their maximum dislike for National by listing it last, but in actual fact transferring their vote to National when the first two don't get enough. I suspect this happened quite a bit in local body STV elections where it is exacerbated by a lot of individual candidates, with multiple to select for each ward, and some well known/disliked faces to number.

Basically, STV will have a distorted proportionality due to the fact that not everyone will rank the candidates and that distortion can be influenced by media campaigns. Not great for electing the government which is supposed to be a true representation of the electorate.

It definitely doesn't result in proportionality in FPP + STV style systems (e.g. Aus). Just as FPP by itself does. (e.g. in this latest election if it'd been FPP National would've ended up with something like 66% of the seats even though it only had 45% of the vote).

I don't see how it'd be less proportional to have STV voting for parties than non STV voting for parties. It means less wasted votes.

We don't need a referendum on MMP - it really is the best voting system there is ATM but we do need to review our present implementation of it and make some adjustments.

Exactly.

PS. I think that if a list MP leaves the party that they are in then they should also be kicked out of parliament because the people who voted for that party will no longer have the representation that they voted for if they stay in.

98% agree.

But also in a way, you could say that when people voted for a party, they were voting for the list as it was at that point in time, saying they want those bunch of affiliated people in, changing that after the election essentially puts someone into the parliament that wasn't really elected... right?

I don't really think this is a big deal whether it's allowed or not since it's so rare. So may just be safe to allow them to go independant if they so want. Their punishment will be at the next election when they don't get in (ideally).

Maybe some kind of party jumping rule could be introduced requiring them to stand independant (as per option 3 described in my last post) at the next election, so they'd not get to just jump to another party and ride in on that party's coat tails, they'd actually have to expect some real voter support for their move before they did it or they'd have no future in parliament.

[adonis]

having some level of threshold for entry into government is somewhat undemocratic, but a practical necessity. IMO using STV to vote for a proportionally represented parliament would be ideal.

As for what JK said prior to the election about MMP, having a referendum on it before a referendum on what would replace it would be a bit stupid really. Since I favour dropping electorate seats I would vote against MMP, in favour of a different form of proportional representation, whereas others may vote against it in favour of less democratic options such as SM, FPP or electorate based STV. Tiriana Turia said she would support a referendum on proportional representation but not on MMP. It may be a bit redundant and a no brainer to most but that would be a more preferable start to the process.

[Golden Teapot]

So picky - just one word different.

All the same, anything Draco suggesrts, I want no part of. I'd ship him off to Cuba if I could.

[adonis]

Originally Posted by Golden Teapot

So picky - just one word different.

All the same, anything Draco suggesrts, I want no part of. I'd ship him off to Cuba if I could.

You accuse Draco of having a "dictatoral" outlook, then say this? Gold really doesn't suit you.

oh, I had to lol@

Why? Corrupt people are more likely to succeed in pulling-one-over the less well educated electorates

You amuse me Mr. Teapot

[Omegakai]

It is my observation that Teapot seems to have a slight Skewed political out look, based more on personal dislike rather then factual policy or electoral governance.
However I have been wrong on such issues before, would Teapot care to set the record straight?