Just Thinking

I first had this idea in 1996, and wrote it in the present form in 1998. I tried communicating it to several political commentators but got no interest. It explains serious weaknesses in MMP that are open to manipulation and offers an alternative VC.

Voter's Choice

This is a proposal for a modification to the voting system in New Zealand. It comes from our experiences of what is good and bad with the old FPP (First Past the Post) system and the MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) system chosen to replace it. No doubt everyone will have their own view about the relative advantages of each system. This is my view about the shortcomings of the past and present systems and a proposal for a new system that would overcome these shortcomings.

Over the last few elections, the political parties in New Zealand have gradually learned about how the system can operate in parliament by accepting that they may need different allies on different issues and that they may sometimes have to give up, at least for the time being, on certain issues.

A little has also been learned about how to manipulate MMP in certain situations. In part this is due to the 5% threshhold required for parties to get seats (unless they win an electoral seat). However in part it is due to not quite sensing that MMP can actually be highly manipulated by two parties working together, one as electoral candidates and one as list candidates. This will be expanded on further.

Disadvantages of FPP.

1. The biggest disadvantage of FPP was that it was unfair and did not reflect the wishes of the voters. It was possible and did actually happen that one party got less votes than another and yet still received more seats and became the government. Proportional representation is arguably a fair system and any system that does not properly give the correct proportion of MPs according to popular support is arguably not democratic.

2. FPP also made it very difficult for minor parties to get established and so did not represent a diversity of opinions. Supporters of minority opinions were effectively forced to make a choice between parties that did not include their first choice. MMP has addressed this problem, although with the 5% threshhold limit it also introduces the need for second guessing by voters as to whether a party will achieve this and so whether they need to win an electoral seat. The public collectively have been extremely accurate at achieving this, but have had to do some strange things to achieve the results which certainly have some distortions compared to an ideal system.

Disadvantages of MMP.

1. While MMP is intended to be a fairer system it turns out that it is possible for two or more parties to ask voters to support one candidate and a different party and so obtain a share of seats between them that is not in keeping with their actual popular support. Such a possibility was not recognised when MMP was being chosen and it clearly goes against the intended fairness of the system. In past elections this practise was used by National and United to gain a seat for United while still retaining National's full percentage share of seats. However it is actually possible for two connected parties to ask supporters to vote for one party with their party vote and the local candidate for the other party with their candidate vote. In this way they can get almost double their fair share of seats relative to other parties. Clearly such a practise was not intended and would be a miscarriage of justice. It is important that this possibility be eliminated.

2. It may also be argued that MMP is complex and that many people do not understand fully the significance of their two votes in spite of the fact that advertisements were shown that explained the consequences as well as possible. As elections have gone by the public have gradually become wiser in this regard and statements by the electoral officers and party leaders have lead people to understand that it is the party vote that really counts.

3. The lists are very important to determining who the elected MPs will be and yet most people do not have any say in who are on the lists. It is true that people could join parties and have some input into the lists, but a fact that most people are not motivated to do this.

Proposed Voter's Choice electoral system.

It is proposed that each voter have a single vote which they may give to any candidate of any party. If they do not like a candidate for the electorate they live in they would be allowed to vote for a candidate in another electorate. The votes of all parties would be added up and the number of seats that each party receives would be in strict proportion to the number of votes cast for their candidates in total. The actual seats would then be allocated to the candidates of each party that had the most votes of candidates from that party until the required number of seats were filled.

Advantages of VC.

1. A single vote only is made which keeps things simple so that people are in no doubt about where they are placing their support.

2. It does not allow for any possibility of several parties engineering extra seats by electoral accommodations as has been done in a minor way in the last three elections and which could be done in a much more extreme way.

3. The present and past systems assume that the area in which a person lives is the most important issue in allowing the choice of candidates except that race is also considered important for Maori. The Voter's Choice system allows each person to decide what is more important for them, be it having a local MP, someone of the same race, or someone representing a particular minority issue such as greens or christians. The present system allows occupations such as farmers to have good representation because they tend to be concentrated in rural electorates while retired or unemployed people or occupations other than farmers are generaly spread over many more electorates and so do not have the same clout. Under Voter's Choice these people can vote for a candidate that they consider sympathetic to their views rather than a local candidate if they prefer.

4. There is no need for special elecorates for Maori because even if registered in the general roll Maori could vote for a Maori candidate somewhere else if they wanted to. It would then become a non-issue to retain Maori seats - Maori could achieve an effective vote either on the the general or Maori roll without having to re-register. They simply need to vote for a candidate that they consider sympathetic to their cause in some other electorate if they have no local candidate that they like.

5. The voters would make the choice on which candidates from a party were elected rather than the less representative method of making up lists. This means that unpopular candidates cannot be repeatedly foisted on an electorate. Parties have a slight dislike for this idea, because they sometimes feel that they have important candidates who do not present well publicly. At present these can be put on the list or in a safe seat. In practice, they can still be given a safe seat because many or most voters will prefer a local candidate.

6. If a party had more than one faction then the voters would influence how many seats each faction has by their choice of which candidates they vote for. This means that major parties no longer need to fracture in order to allow a diversity of views to be accommodated and should allow greater stability of the major parties. Both National and Labour could have a spread of candidates with, for example, more or less Market economic policies, and the public could decide which factions were more highly represented. Although other aspects of this proposal (specifically the 5% threshhold removal) could be said to increase fracturing, this aspect would work very much to reduce fracturing of parties, making parties more fluid.

7. Voters are not faced with confusion about what to do if they like a party but do not like the local candidate, they simply vote for a candidate from another electorate for the party that they like.

8. All successful candidates would be electoral MPs and would in effect represent those voters that voted for them from other electorates as well as the local area.

9. The number of MPs could, if desired, be reduced to 99 in line with popular wishes and a larger number of electorates included satisfying the heavy electorate workload simultaneously. Alternatively, the number of MPs could be retained as a higher number than the number of electorates. This possibility would almost ensure that each elecorate had at least one sitting MP as at present.

Practical considerations.

When considering how each candidate would vote, this system allows a greater number of possibilities as any voter can vote for any candidate in any electorate. For practical purposes it seems that the best idea would be to have a voting paper with the local candidates on it and a space for "some other candidate". A numbered list of all candidates for all electorates could be shown on the wall, and anyone wishing to vote for some other candidate would simply record the number, name and party of the candidate from that list on to their voting form.

It is proposed that there be no "minimum party support" hurdle as in the 5% threshhold as required by MMP at present. The main reason is that it seems entirely unfair that a party getting 4.5% should get no seats while a party getting 5.5% should get 6 or 7 seats. This unfairness also spills over into voter uncertainty because they must try to guess whether a party will get over the 5% hurdle or not because if not their vote is wasted. Strictly speaking this condition is quite independent of the choice of voting system as it might equally well be changed in MMP or not changed in VC.