Hard News: Don't bother voting
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Ben Wilson wrote:
So I can only conclude that wasted votes are an intended consequence of the current system.
Not really. The Royal Commission report recommended a threshold of 4% (now 5%) to avoid a large number of small parties in parliament
2.163 There is a danger that a proliferation of small parties in the House would detract from, rather than enhance, the effectiveness of Parliament by fragmenting the Opposition and thus decrease its ability to counter and debate Government moves. However MMP avoids this danger in that the 4% threshold would generally mean that no parties with fewer than 5 MPs would be represented in the House.
(Unfortunately - or fortunately depending on your point of view - the threshold exception for parties gaining an electorate seat put paid to that last sentence).
I wonder if having no threshold would lead to a plethora of parties standing for election.
It always amazes me the number of parties that register for the election, and the obvious effort that some of them go through in order to try and get people to vote for them (see the party lists) , when it is blatantly obvious that they'll never get anywhere near the 5% threshold. (Are they so reality-averse that they think they can ?).
Imagine if there was no threshold, so about 0.8% would be enough to get a seat (about 20,000 votes) ? How many hundreds more people would think that this was a possibility and set up a party to try to get into Parliament ?
Still, I personally think the threshold is too high, and abhor party politics (all parliamentary votes should be conscience votes).
Cheers,
Brent. -
Speaking of not bothering to exercise one's vote... if you subscribe to the belief that The Standard = Labour, Labour supporters in Epsom are being told to vote for the Nats' Richard Worth over Labour's Kate Sutton, for the sake of keeping ACT out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this didn't actually work last time, did it?
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Speaking of not bothering to exercise one's vote... if you subscribe to the belief that The Standard = Labour, Labour supporters in Epsom are being told to vote for the Nats' Richard Worth over Labour's Kate Sutton, for the sake of keeping ACT out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this didn't actually work last time, did it?
Well, if I was Ms. Sutton I'd be not best pleased, but the thing about 'strategic' voting is that if enough people don't play along, you can end up being a little too clever for your own good and downright . Anyone remember the rather poor reaction to the Guarniad's Operation Clark County four years back?
So. Has Dunne done his dash?
Meh...
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BTW, if entrenching the Maori seats really is an absolute, unmovable bottom line for the Maori Party, it looks like they've relegated themselves to the cross-benches:
Labour won't entrench the Maori seats but it says it will continue to support the Maori Electoral Option which controls the number of those electorates.
So, who flips, who flops and who gets out the electron microscope and splits that hair one more time?
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I'm not overly concerned about the threshold.
I do however think the floating number of MPs that we have, based on the possibilities of overhangs, bizarre.
Currently we use the party list votes to proportionalise parliament up to 120 MPs, and then we have overhangs on top of that.
If there's one thing that should be fixed in parliament, surely it's the number of people that sit there. It would always make 61 the magic number, not sometimes 62, 63 etc.
To me when they figure it out, they should take 120, remove the overhang MPs from the number, and then proportionalise the remainder. So your party vote might figure out 115 MPs, and then the overhangs are the other 5.
It would still be very likely to be proportional, but would discontinue this bizarre random size parliament we have.
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To me when they figure it out, they should take 120, remove the overhang MPs from the number, and then proportionalise the remainder. So your party vote might figure out 115 MPs, and then the overhangs are the other 5.
It would still be very likely to be proportional, but would discontinue this bizarre random size parliament we have.
Interestingly, that is exactly what happens if an independent wins an electorate seat (or an electorate seat is won by a member of a party that doesn't submit a list).
You can make arguments either way, but it is, however, less proportionate. Party X gets 50% of the vote - in a 120 seat Parliament you expect them to get 60 seats, with a 4 seat "overhang", operating this way they'd get 58 seats.
It's a solution to a fluctuating Parliament, but it doesn't address the main problem that arises when a Party receives more electorate seats than its party votes would otherwise entitle it.
Interestingly, the size of Parliament used to fluctuate under first past the post (though before the election, not because of it). It was set at 80 in (I think) 1902), but for 1969, rose to 84, 3 years later rose to 87, in 1978 rose to 92, in 1984 to 95, in 1987 to 97 and only hit the pre-MMP 99 in 1993.
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I dunno. There is a rate of mental illness in society (whatever it is) that perhaps we need to account for and whilst I think that representing the needs of those citizen's is important, it can kinda mess up the rest of the system if the threshold is too low.
To point out something which should be obvious to anyone, none of the parties which would be in parliament under a lower threshold (the Alliance, Destiny, Libertarianz and maybe ALCP) could be considered to be "mentally ill". Obnoxious, irritating, dogmatic, or just different, sure. But none of them could be called "insane" in any sense other than the rhetorical.
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Craig, I despair of you sometimes. Labour has always said it would keep the seats as long a Maori want them and that is the position "Entrenched" in their, unlikely, deal with national.
Anycock, John Key has said "National's plan to help people who lose their jobs because of the international financial crisis could be paid for with money generated by the bank deposit guarantee scheme."
excuse me, WHAT?
So, he is saying "the bank deposit guarantee scheme is a money making enterprise as there is no way our banks will fail" or what?
And, he will use this money to pay people who have lost their jobs because of the "Credit Crisis" and no other reason?
Yes he said it. "The payments would be part of a wider move by National to help people get back into the workforce.Any payment or support would be targeted and carry a time limit."
What bollocks. Excuse me Mr. Money shuffler, we already have the unemployment benefit. Are you saying that you intend to remove that? or are you saying that you will pay the guy extra if they worked for a failed finance company? SHEESH!
What is it with this guy? "I wont borrow for Tax Cuts, I will borrow for infrastructure instead" DICK!
The money for bank deposit insurance is for, well deposit insurance, GEDDIT? The banks will not fall over and no jobs will be lost as a direct result of the banks falling over. Will you pay me extra because one of my clients can no longer afford my services because they invested in a shokey, speculative property development?
Be honest with us Jonkey, if that is in the least bit possible. You really have no clue when it comes to finance do you. You think that if you shift the stuff around enough you can use it twice, three times?
Oh yeah, you used to do that for a "living" didn't you, you knuckle dragging numbskull.
You and your kind are the problem, not the answer. -
BTW, if entrenching the Maori seats really is an absolute, unmovable bottom line for the Maori Party, it looks like they've relegated themselves to the cross-benches:
Which may not be such a bad thing for them. A Maori Party veto on policy, anyone?
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if you subscribe to the belief that The Standard = Labour, Labour supporters in Epsom are being told to vote for the Nats' Richard Worth over Labour's Kate Sutton, for the sake of keeping ACT out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this didn't actually work last time, did it?
I don't subscribe to the Standard = Labour however we shouldn't forget that this tactic has worked in the past. 1996. Bolger encouraged National voters to vote for Act over the National candidate. Not entirely the same, granted, but it proves voters can be mobilised to vote other than for their preferred candidate.
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Brent
> So I can only conclude that wasted votes are an intended consequence of the current system.
Not really. The Royal Commission report recommended a threshold of 4% (now 5%) to avoid a large number of small parties in parliament
Since a large number of parties stand and are voted for that is just another way of saying that those votes are deliberately excluded.
It always amazes me the number of parties that register for the election, and the obvious effort that some of them go through in order to try and get people to vote for them (see the party lists) , when it is blatantly obvious that they'll never get anywhere near the 5% threshold. (Are they so reality-averse that they think they can ?).
What's hard about the idea that they might believe in what they are standing for? It's not a matter of being 'reality averse'. It's about taking some pride in getting however many people they do get, to vote for them DESPITE the fact they won't get any representation. Much like voting Green in the USA. Believe it or not there are viable political views that don't make the numbers. If the numbers were lower, they would. That they can't is built into our MMP.
I still think MMP is a vast improvement on the previous system though, which entrenched the wasted vote to a much greater extent.
Imagine if there was no threshold, so about 0.8% would be enough to get a seat (about 20,000 votes) ? How many hundreds more people would think that this was a possibility and set up a party to try to get into Parliament ?
A lot probably. Why does that bother you? I don't see any particular virtue in the party machines. They are a virus that infected our democracy. MMP was brought in mainly in recognition of this, that parties had pretty much subverted the entire idea of representative democracy, to the point where people weren't voting for representatives any more, they were mostly voting for parties, and parties were thus excluding all other representation. And the way that parties were being selected was pretty unfair because it was so unproportional. I'm surprised the party virus ever allowed MMP to bust it up so much, but it held on with thresholds.
I mean seriously what the hell does it add that John Key has 50-odd other duschbags following him because to be in power they must? Does it add anything at all to the quality of the decisions he will preside over? Partys are giant antidemocratic blocs which seek to impose ideologies we don't really care about over us and tell us we asked for them. Breaking down what we believe in into 2 or even 10 choices is just crap IMHO. OK it's less crap than any other system we've tried before, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved upon.
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In that other election does this mean The Fix is Already in?
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Which may not be such a bad thing for them. A Maori Party veto on policy, anyone?
Certainly wouldn't, but the notion sure seems to causing the mental equivalent of an ice cream head ache among the likes of Brian Rudman, Chris Trotter, Michael Laws and others who are actually smart enough to know better.
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I don't subscribe to the Standard = Labour however we shouldn't forget that this tactic has worked in the past. 1996. Bolger encouraged National voters to vote for Act over the National candidate. Not entirely the same, granted, but it proves voters can be mobilised to vote other than for their preferred candidate.
"Not entirely the same"? Oh, you mean cluster-fucking the National candidate for Wellington Central in, quite literally, the last fifteen seconds of his last television interview of the campaign? It's questionable whether it really did Prebble any good, but I can tell you it certainly did long-term damage to the National party organisation (and vote) across Wellington. Which, in my view, just makes my point that voters don't actually much like feeling they're manipulated by smart arses in smoke-filled back rooms.
Here's a really crazy idea: How about every candidate in Epsom spend the next twelve day putting their case for election, and leave the dumb-arse peasants to make up their own minds for their own reasons?
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I don't know about your inclusion of Laws in that list. Rat cunning he might have, analytical skills he doesn't.
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In that other election does this mean The Fix is Already in?
No. It means nobody gave McCain the briefing book containing the factoid that denial is a river in d'Egypt. Breath deep and repeat after me, Steve: Cock up trumps conspiracy, moron trumps malice.
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Craig, I knew and liked Mark so you'll get no argument from me. I meant only to point out that the reasonable expectations of local supporters can and has been diverted for "higher purpose".
Incidentally, this statement:
but I can tell you it certainly did long-term damage to the National party organisation (and vote) across Wellington.
shouldn't be in the past tense.
Stephen Franks candidacy, like Blumsky's before is evidence of National's ongoing dysfunction in Wellington Central. Both are simply names... I thought Hekia Parata was a very good candidate, though I'd not have voted for her (tribal me), and from memory she even had genuine links to the party.
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I don't know about your inclusion of Laws in that list. Rat cunning he might have, analytical skills he doesn't.
I should have written "as well as others who are smart enough to know better." Seriously, someone needs to take Brian Rudman out behind the barn and send him to the same heaven as his hobby horses and Trotter? He's just getting one hell of a rash on his neck.
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Steve: Cock up trumps conspiracy, moron trumps malice.
Damn it Craig, you've been using my Occams razor on your legs again, haven't you?
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Steve:
Seriously, the McCain-Palin campaign (and the GOP in general) is in such a state -- and so short of money -- I don't think they'd be capable of rigging a chook raffle by buying all the tickets. I'd hardly expect McCain to admit he's already lubing his arse, and practicing with the biggest dildo the RNC can afford after pimpin' out the Diva, for Election Night.
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No. It means nobody gave McCain the briefing book containing the factoid that denial is a river in d'Egypt. Breath deep and repeat after me, Steve: Cock up trumps conspiracy, moron trumps malice.
And Diebold trumps them all, if it wants to. But we'll just have to wait and see on that.
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You can make arguments either way, but it is, however, less proportionate. Party X gets 50% of the vote - in a 120 seat Parliament you expect them to get 60 seats, with a 4 seat "overhang", operating this way they'd get 58 seats.
The difference to proportionality isn't too horrendous.
60 seats in a 124 seat parliament is: 48.387%
56 seats in a 120 seat parliament is: 46.667%Neither is proportional to the party vote, which is what happens when you allow an overhang to occur.
Your 50% party would have two less MPs, but would need two less to get to the majority (61 as compared to 63), so it would be no more difficult to form a government.
It just seems somewhat strange that, now we have a system where the main block of MPs is set at a fixed number (120), we let this other number of overhang MPs jump around. We have a fixed number of MPs, if we keep it the same every election, a bunch of things get simpler.
For one thing, it would mean not having to add or remove seats from the house every time there was an election. MP offices, staff, budgets. You could know with confidence by looking at voting records back through history whether something passed etc etc.
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From that herald article:
Even as he was speaking, however, residents of Alaska, where Mrs Palin is Governor, were awaking to find that the state's largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News had endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket.
Man. Wheels are really coming off the straight talking bus aren't they.
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Craig:
The GOP don't need piles of visible cash to pull this off, it is entrenched (there's that word again) in the mindset of republican supporters, they really believe that the country belongs to them, the Civil war never ended for them.
There is an irony here in that the Unionists believe there is strength in a union and the Confederate's believe in a more devolved power structure. However. the Democrats come from a belief system that looks on the South as a bunch of Rednecks that we associate with the right wing of the US. It's bonkers really. -
@Ben Wilson:
Can you explain to me why these two statements of yours are not mutually contradictory?
"...I don't see a grand coalition as bizarre. What is bizarre is the refusal to accept the idea, to insist on party politics unto the death..."
"...What's hard about the idea that they might believe in what they are standing for? It's not a matter of being 'reality averse'. It's about taking some pride in getting however many people they do get, to vote for them DESPITE the fact they won't get any representation..."
If a political party is founded on a specific set of beliefs, that they are proud of and they wish to get people to vote for, then the bizarre thing is having anyone saying they should form grand coalitions with another party whose philosophical foundations they fundamentally disagree with.
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