Posts by Angus Robertson
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I'm not disputing that tactical voting can cause an overhang, nor that it helped cause one here. I'm suggesting the larger cause of overhang is an unequal distribution of voters between electorates.
The numbers, they don't work out.
2008 Maori electorates produced 33,807 party votes for the Maori Party. To increase this to 85,000+ (ensuring they have 5 PR MPs) requires making each electorate 2.5x larger than they currently are. Each electorate would then have 52,000 active voters or 40% more than the general roll average.
This isn't equivalency.
And mostly, I'm backing up my riposte to your assertion that the Maori electorates are not inherently more likely to cause an overhang. Whether you agree that this overhang was strongly correlated to voter numbers across the Maori electorates or not, I think my argument at the very least shows that overhang is more likely in electorates with lower than average voter numbers...
A situation that, whilst being theoretically logical, doesn't apply in NZ.
...(which the Maori electorates are).
Not under MMP, at least not for party vote. The party vote that determines the proportionality of parliament is counted across all electorates. Each electorate MP is effectively drawing upon an equal and very large electorate to determine their party vote.
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You're looking at the results as showing that the Maori Party were the beneficiaries of tactical voting in the Maori seats.
Yeah and pre-election polling agrees, but polls tend to focus solely on party vote so are inaccurate in regard to tactical voting.
Another way to look at it is that the Labour Party were the beneficiaries of tactical voting in the Maori seats: Maori Party supporters looked at the polls, realised that the Maori Party were unlikely to win any list seats, so party voted for the Labour Party, giving them some extra seats.
A marvellous description of how they could vote tactically to ensure an overhang.
I don't think either of these is the correct way or the incorrect way to look at the results, but is does show how our biases can colour our interpretation of data.
In Epsom my biases lead me to suspect lots in that electorate voted tactically, because it was a smart thing to do. Do you agree?
In the Maori electorates my biases lead me to suspect lots in those electorates voted tactically, because it was a smart thing to do. Do you agree?
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Yes. But because the Maori Party won an electorate it doesn't matter for them.
How did they win 5 electoral seats?
I believe they were the beneficiaries of tactical voting.
Had they earned 85,411+ votes they'd have caused no overhang.
And they wouldn't have any seats, unless there was a significant amount of tactical voting.
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Mikaere's numbers are wrong (my apologies for not noticing his comment earlier). He assumes that you earn a seat with c. 20k votes. This is false. Without a threshold, at the last election, a party could have earned a seat with 9,160 votes. Three seats would have been earned with 46,611 votes, and five seats with 85,411 votes. That's just how the Sainte-Laguë method works out, which I note isn't applied in his analysis.
Actually I think we do have a 5% threshold.
That this *is* a tactical advantage does not mean it is caused by tactical behaviour. My analysis leads me to the conclusion that it is not behaviour from Maori Party voters, or Maori roll voters that primarily causes this, but the relative youth of the Maori descent population, coupled with lower enrolment and turnout.
They got less than 5% of the party vote and didn't win the party vote in any single electorate. Since Graeme has concluded that tactical voting was insignificant, I am really interested to see how they get them into parliament under any extrapolated bias elimination process. How big are these electorates going to be?
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I'm not talking about tactical voting, I'm talking about overhang.
There's no difference, overhang is tactical advantage. Both increase the chance of a voter getting their representatives into government.
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Eventually the list vote would give them 5 MPs, which is the number of electorates they won.
But, as Mikaere shows above, "eventually" does not happen until the Maori electorates are have more voters than general roll electorates.
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I suggest sufficient Maori voters used their votes tactically to increase their representation.
I've done the numbers (and am inclined to turn this into a fully argued post) and if the Maori electorates had the same number of voters as the general electorates, there would be no overhang.
Because having larger electorates makes it impossible for voters to vote tactically for their own advantage? Seats like Epsom or Tauranga or Coromandel, are all examples of larger electorates.
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The "normal" situation would be that there are 70 electorate MPs, and 50 list MPs. There are two overhang MPs, making 52 lists overall. The two extra list MPs - the overhang MPs - are from the National Party and the Green Party.
It doesn't matter that the last 2 seats went to the Nats and the Greens - the overhang effectively advantages the Maori Party.
There is a 60% or so disproportionality between what the Maori Party earned in party votes and the proportion of seats awarded. To correct this would require an additional 60% overhang of seats, whereas we only add 1.4% more seats.
MMP with overhang is not PR and favours whoever utilises the overhang. Its not due to any inherent bias, just some Maori voters are a good deal smarter than the rest of us.
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The "normal" situation would be that there are 70 electorate MPs, and 50 list MPs. There are two overhang MPs, making 52 lists overall. The two extra list MPs - the overhang MPs - are from the National Party and the Green Party.
So, I'm wrong. Proportionality is across all 122. Oops
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Kyle,
Under MMP all seats apart from overhangs and independents are PR.
I took Angus' claim to be that there are enough Maori voters on either the Maori roll, or on the general roll, to have elected 13 PR reps, plus 2 with the overhang in a big tactical vote.
I didn't, but if I do add in all Maori in the general electorate (and account for demographics)... math, math, math ... approximately 15 seats are decided by Maori PR.
15 + 2 = 17
Which is assigning a whole heap of intent to Maori on the general roll that would require some pretty good data to back it up.
No, just on those Maori roll who voted tactically in a way smarter than you (or me) so they ended up with greater representation.