Mixed-member proportional
mmp, layered with preference voting—mmpp—is fairest possible system
Compulsory voting cart before smarter-democracy horse
Big business would be the biggest loser, was a Labour-led government to legislate to prosecute non-voters. Currently, unlike Australians, New Zealanders are legally allowed to abstain from voting. But with global voter turnout in determined decline, New Zealand’s lack…
read more
Aotearoa might best advance stv by enhancing mmp
Aotearoa is not just the world’s first full democracy because it was first to enfranchise women. Thanks to New Zealand’s geographic isolation and late colonisation, a partnership approach was attempted from the get-go, with greater and lesser success. One uniquely…
read more
stv supercity shake-up, then Wellington
Mayor Goff was elected by barely 18% of registered voters. Len Brown at least, won 47.8% of votes cast, but only because voters were then still in the dark about his grubby use of Auckland Council property. But the bigger crime of both men, and of the Royal…
read more
Democratise coalitions and lists now
Half voted for change, and half for the status quo. The 44.4% who voted for the New Zealand National Party, and the 0.5% who voted for what remains of ex-Labour-finance-minister Roger Douglas’ rebel act party, are now represented by 57 opposition…
read more
Single super-coalition shot for democracy
If New Zealanders elected their prime minister, there would now be a clear winner. And, unless it was under the old deeply undemocratic first-past-the-post system, that winner would be Winston Peters. Because, while Jacinda Ardern and Bill…
read more
Let’s do this, deliver democracy
It would be hard to contrive a more effective means of turning youth off. After being lectured for months on the importance of enrolling and voting, young people are now told nothing. Not only are they not told how young people voted, they are…
read more
Just when Jacinda needed Germany most
When Jacinda Ardern stepped up, Labour was on 24% and National was at 47%. Once the special votes are counted, which include whatever youthquake or youth-tremor has occurred, the New Zealand National Party share will be lucky to be 45%…
read more
Failure to fix mmp could cost Labour
Gareth Morgan’s failure to crash last Friday’s leaders debate drew attention to the inescapable. His briefly promising political initiative hasn’t come close to breaking the 5%-threshold barrier to tyro parties, and will not make it into Parliament…
read more
No Dunne deal – directly elect coalitions
As with the America’s Cup, coming second place in party politics generally equates with losing. Until recently, it had been looking as though the hospital pass Bill English received from the charismatic, if unchivalrous, Sir John Key might not prove fatal…
read more
Courage for more than a cuppa
It’s 30 years since David Lange belatedly called taihoa. His Labour Party caucus cohorts had unleashed the neoliberal onslaught that, amongst other tragedies, precipitated New Zealand’s ongoing youth suicide epidemic. Throughout the…
read more
Make direct democracy smart democracy
Professor David Altman wrote the book on it. Academics know it as direct democracy; Australians, bless ’em, mostly as plebiscites; and mere citizens, as initiatives or referendums. Semantics aside, most democracies allow for direct democracy, to a…
read more
Loyal opposition reaches oblivious conclusion
It was a stroke of unintended brilliance, which has blighted democracy ever since. When John Cam Hobhouse coined the term loyal opposition, in jest, he could’ve had no inkling he would help dignify 190 years of two-party parliaments, where…
read more
Make Aotearoa egalitarian and great again
His timing is impeccable, and his mission merciful. Immediately mocked by the mainstream media, Gareth Morgan’s launch of a party dedicated to eliminating poverty and closing the inequality gap is a cause worthy of wholehearted support, even by…
read more
Hard lessons loom as history repeats
Like Dirty Politics, Watergate was revealed ahead of an election that saw the perpetrating political party rewarded, by being returned to power with an increased majority. Five months after five burglars were caught in Democratic Party offices…
read more
mmp permits youth to be given lifetime licence to vote
Before 1996, it mattered—in order to participate in an election, a person needed to be registered in an electorate. This requirement reflected the Westminster system whereby the extent of a voter’s democratic entitlement was, at best, to help…
read more
After a little shadow voting elect the prime minister
It must be exercising the mind of ‘Mattiavelli’ McCarten. Simply give the job of prime minister, post the election, to ‘Wily’ Winston. After all, it is entirely up to the winning bloc as to who the prime minister should be. Across all voters, Winston…
read more
It might be politicians maintaining the miracle
It has happened only once. That the people, rather than the politicians, of an established democracy have led the change to a more proportional system. In fact, Aotearoa in 1993 elected to change from a sometimes inversely proportional system—the patently…
read more
Voilà! Lance, Laila and Lucy can vanquish neoliberalism
Undemocratic, unnecessary and now, in Germany, unconstitutional. In last month’s European Parliamentary elections, most member countries, and for the first time that included Germany, faced no explicit electoral threshold. In February, Germany’s…
read more
Concurrent elections closest to voter-turnout silver bullet
Another local body election, and another uninformed swipe at STV. While it is probable that the at-large, single-transferable-vote, district health board elections are the single biggest reason only a third of Aucklanders returned their ballots…
read more
Cure for ills of democracy is smarter democracy
Aotearoa is still very near to having the world’s smartest electoral system. If, as is entirely probable, the Electoral Commission’s proposals become its recommendations, and those recommendations are implemented by Parliament, Aotearoa might…
read more
Way clear for courageous first online list
Labour has just been handed a third potentially pivotal gift. Eighty years ago, the preoccupation of the United and Reform coalition predecessor of the National Party with balancing the books led to real unemployment reaching 30%, to food riots, and…
read more
mmp commission has perfect hearing
The primary motivation in producing the Mahurangi Magazine to champion the Mahurangi harbourscape. Just an hour’s bus ride away from the city centre—or it will be once the Mahurangi Coastal Trail is complete—the Mahurangi is many Aucklanders…
read more
Very near to being world’s best electoral system
The Mahurangi Magazine has campaigned for MMP to be retained and improved for four and a half years—‘1 2 3, tune-up MMP.’ This submission primarily addresses an inherent historical deficiency of mixed member proportional systems…
read more
Ranking not ticking to tame party lists
It’s a graphic illustration of the limitations of an electoral system. Despite every poll screaming its opposition to asset sales, the National Party ploughs ahead claiming that last year’s win over Labour provides it with an unassailable mandate to…
read more
Challenge to capture voters’ true intent
But I’m just a soul whose intentions are good Oh Lord! Please don’t let me be misunderstood It’s the Christmas present the planet doesn’t need. A signature of runaway global warming is the sudden release of methane from the ice-like clathrate compounds…
read more
Dispatching two electoral review room elephants
Two elephants in the room, are two too many. The Māori roll and size of parliament are the two no-go areas for the Electoral Commission review, which will call for public submissions in mid-February and hold public meetings in April and May. The two …
read more
Tune-up will leave MMP better loved than understood
At 74.21%, Aotearoa hasn’t seen lower turnout percentages, consistently, since 1887. And although the 1978 turnout is recorded as 69.2%, this was a one-off aberration reflecting an under-resourced attempt to reform the electoral enrolment process…
read more
Tactics and polls or preference voting
It was uncannily similar to ancient Greece. In Saturday’s tactical voting, where 54% could be said to have voted against John Banks, citizens were mimicking the first formal Greek use of the ballot, which was to ostracise a civic leader—his name having…
read more
Mixed-member means rout no landslide
The word has been expunged from the electoral lexicon. Had the election been held under first-past-the-post, the result would have been a landslide of global warming proportions. In its first successful election, in 1949, National won 51.9% of the vote…
read more
Supplementary is mixed-member-disproportional
There are two mixed member systems on offer. Mixed member proportional and mixed member majoritarian, also known as both supplementary member and parallel voting. At a glance, one system appears to be fully proportional, and the other semi…
read more
Graduatedly preferentially fixing fixed threshold
The two things are tied together. The coattails provision and the 5% threshold, in New Zealand’s implementation of mixed member proportional. But first, it is necessary to consider why either might be necessary. Mixed member…
read more
Possible change in six years or definite change in three
If its fortunes markedly improve, it could receive a third of the votes. Two weeks to the election and polling has the Labour Party struggling to stay above 28%. With only entirely uncharismatic characters waiting in the wings to take over from the…
read more
Electoral review and mixed-member disinformation
Political parties are universally distrusted. The level of distrust varies, but the 83.2% of Seoul residents in their 20s and 30s recently surveyed who considered no political party supported their interests is reasonably representative. This dissatisfaction…
read more
For a richer electoral system: proportional and preferential
Aotearoa sports the Rolls-Royce of proportional voting systems. Mixed member proportional is the only system that guarantees, potentially, that minor parties receive their fair proportion of parliamentary representation. But that is not to…
read more
Fascination with the beauty of models
There is nothing put at risk, bar the possible dashing of preconceptions. Such is the beauty of models; they allow scenarios to be explored virtually, at very little cost—once the software has been written, the model can be run again and again with…
read more
First-past-the-post ‘win’ argument for preferential
It is easily overlooked. Aotearoa may enjoy exemplary proportional representation, but electorate representatives are still elected by the multiply flawed first-past-the-post system. Voters in last Saturday’s by-election were allowed to express…
read more
National’s Power sets scene to retain and change mmp
Some’ll see it as fiddling while climate warms. And never mind reviewing the electoral system, many see democracy as inherently incapable of responding adequately to avert runaway global warming, and hanker for a benign dictator. Famously James Lovelock…
read more
Prendergast loss somehow pinned on preferential
As mayoral majorities go, it’s one of the slimmest. Because the democratic world is so inured to the deficiencies of first-past-the-post, it mostly goes unnoticed that mayors are typically elected by a minority vote, often a tiny minority. Whereas Celia…
read more
Tuned-up mmp could be ninety-nine not out
First, it was a fateful decision. Then it became a cynical decision, when New Zealand’s parliament ignored the 81.5% of voters who asked for the house to be reduced to 99 seats—the cosy two-party duopoly had no desire to see mixed-member proportional…
read more
Out of all proportional Aussies eat their Greens
Updated 9 September 2010 Grand coalition is the only honourable option. In yesterday’s election, neither major party obtained a mandate to lead Australia. The undisputed winner, out of the shameful defrauding of Kevin Rudd and the Australian people, is the Green...
read more
Voting for and against, and with first past the post
It is a continual improvement advocate’s worst nightmare. It would be like lining up the 15-year-old family hack at Bathurst, without even checking the dipstick. Mixed member proportional is about to be compared with a yet-to-be-determined range of other systems, with...
read more
Aotearoa has mixed-member proportional half right
Only half know what they are doing. That’s in general elections, where the turnout puts local government elections to shame—in spite of voters needing to travel no further than the mailbox. And not only do a mere 52% understand ‘which of the two votes…
read more
What’s to fix with mixed-member proportional
The member of Parliament’s ‘What’s to fix with mmp’ wasn’t rhetorical. Consequently, the editor was somewhat taken aback. It was a sharp reminder that opinion on mixed member proportional is, mixed. That it is either a huge improvement on…
read moreFor feck sake fix mixed-member proportional
Evidence-based voter-turnout-decline interventions Ordered by urgency of deployment Year-7–15 voting as curtain-raiser Universal year-7–15 voting in schools—extended Kids Voting Election Day enrol-and-vote Concurrent elections, which will quickly recoup the...
read more