New Zealand parliamentary specialist Dr David Lindsey, of the University of Auckland, said business favoured FPP because it delivered a government on election night and certainty for the few years.

?FPP is great if you want stability and certainty for?

I say "looks" because there's no way you're getting me to engage with STV after 5pm on a Friday ...

Ae, not even with videos

I'd love a version of MMP where parties?

That's kind of an option. If "keep MMP" gets?

I feel if enough people vote for?

Around 0.4% will get you one MP under our current system. ~1.2% will get you 2 MPs.?

I want a zero % threshold but?

Simplifying a bit: rounding. You get the?

Winning a first electorate seat requires merely a plurality of electorate votes (for which, in most cases,?

I presume they're referring to the electorate vote, which is basically a FPP?

The overhang is caused by having won more electorates then your list vote entitles you to. It's?

– Don't know who to vote for?
At last no more acronymbly dithering!
Cast away with confidence on the
GE ElectroElectoralNominator

or

-?

No. Indeed, it means overhang is less likely.

Overhang is, as noted, what occurs when a registered?

Here's one I prepared earlier.

__New Zealand National Party ? 55 seats
New Zealand Labour Party ? 41 seats
The Greens ? 8 seats
New Zealand First Party ??

Which would have actually made a huge?

How about the one we have now?
National + M?ori Party?

So I disagree with people who say that a zero threshold will mean that stable governments cannot be formed.

The concern that many people have with it is the supposed likely proliferation of really small parties.

If 4/5 parties can get enough party votes to earn a single seat when?

There are other ways of dealing with that though -?

The M?ori Party didn't obtain overhang. National and the Greens are the beneficiaries of an overhang caused by the M?ori Party.

Seems even more untenable that The Herald employs "National's pollster" as a columnist without declaring his role.

The best quote has to be:

Brash says he "has heard rumblings" about an anti-MMP campaign, "but I'm not aware of who's involved currently".

Does he really think no one has read The Hollow Men?

History has shown MMP is very stable.
But Lusk is a gifted operator. Besides the Brash coup,....

That's telling as well. Cant leave well enough alone....some people.

To be bitchy, a referendum on the Lib Dems was the actual?

A who's who of the Hollow Men.

I plan to vote for MMP and on the second question to vote tactically for the?

(It is the strategy the family had already worked out.)

The M?ori Party didn't obtain overhang. National and the Greens are the beneficiaries of an overhang caused by the M?ori Party.

That's a wierd way of putting it. Surely the major beneficary is the party which has more seats than they would be entitled to by the party vote?

Now,?

1. National got 44.93% of the party vote. And its 58 seats are 47.54%?

I?

Single Transferable Vote (STV) is generally accepted to be a proportional system, in which minority views are properly represented.

The form of voting reform Clegg extracted in a back room deal from?

I'm still yet to be convinced it works well. The complete wipeout of the Green Party in Ireland isn't a good look. The problem I see is that its proportionality is?

Proportionality of first preferences isn't guaranteed, but if the electorates?

I'm struggling to see how 5 MPs can be proportional. If there's more than 5 parties then some of them have to be?

The general answer is that things tend to even out over the the whole country.

Even with 3-5?

– apparently we're all a bit too dumb to understand MMP, so shouldn't we just make it easier? – like FPP! winners/losers – easy!
– Nigel Roberts excellent as?

I'm not sure you can meaningfully group independents like that.

But like?

FPP isn't all that easy to understand. I've spoken to more than one person who remembers voting for that nice Mr Lange despite never having visited Mangere,?

Yes, but only because of the wasted vote. Meanwhile, it increases the relative rewards for overhang, and thus encourages parties to pursue one.?

Though with a higher effective threshold than we have at present.

Doesn't that rely on parties having stronger support in some areas?

If a party got 30% in one 5 seat electorate, that would give them one or two seats. If they got 15% everywhere, they'd?

That would obviously be better. If it were 2, it would be identical to FPP. The further from 2, the less like FPP,?

I used to be a strong supporter of the lifeboat. The arguments usually arrayed against it are pretty easily dismissed (i.e. it's not unfair that?

Yes, that's what I see with the high independent count in the Irish elections. A local personality can get elected, but any viewpoint that?

If you believe that the first preference is the only important vote, and that proportionality with respect to the first preference is all important, then they?

Yes, that's the whole point of the national proportionalizing (can't think of a better word). The threshold has always been a?

Reason: it takes more than one to be a party. If somebody (like Dunne or Anderton) can get support in one electorate, then they can be an independent MP, but to?

Yes, this is true. It's not the only condition for considering it suboptimal, though. What I really don't like about it is the?

Who stars in it?

I was shocked when I saw a voting paper in Australia. They required you to rank every candidate from 1..N with no duplications, no rankings left out, and the full ranking from 1..N. Make the slightest error and your vote is wasted. You can't just go 1,2,3?

If that's your view, vote for keep MMP on the first question, vote?

Bloody Hugh Grant, I imagine

Parties are just collections of individuals with common political ideas. If you want to influence the list, you can join a party and do so. (At least you can if?

It is a requirement for registering a party to contest the party vote that the party have a democratic process for selecting candidates for both electorates and lists, and these processes have to be public?

I had a read of some of the party rules. Sure, they include consultation of members, but at the end of the day, there's an awful lot of "smoke filled rooms" allowed?

The Law says they are eligible. Has since its inception.

The law could say something else, but it doesn't.

And here [[http://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/all-is-forgiven-or-the-happy-consensus/|are some of my views on the Broadcasting Allocation?

I'm not sure there's much more that I could say in answer to that question: how is it that they're eligible? The law says they are.

Why? Because Parliament has banned everyone form paying for party political advertising?

Thank you. That?

That was your question?!

I still wouldn't read it that way. I just offered that as information because I'd offered someone else the same information in reply to a question on the kiwiblog thread.

Other than that, I'm out.