New Zealand 2011

[Antarctic]

A lot of angst here about the record low turnout....72% of the roll or 68% of those eligible.That's about 1,000,000 people.
It may seem high in the US but we are more used to 80%+ turnouts.

National's vote number has slightly risen on 2008 whereas Labour's has plunged leading to the supposition that Labour voters have stayed home.How much of that is due to voter disenchantment with Labour and how much is because the polls showed Labour so far behind is a moot point.

Supporters of both parties are pretty grumpy about the resurrection of NZF...Winston truly is the ghost who walks.We thought he had a stake through his heart last time but here he is.
He seems to have have taken the old and grumpy vote from both parties and there's no doubt he got a huge boost from the "cup of tea" debacle.

[Хahar 🤔]

When it came to booting party hacks, STV seemed to work pretty well in Ireland.

[redcommander]

Why is Wellington so left-wing compared to the other major cities?

[Antarctic]

Why is Wellington so left-wing compared to the other major cities?

They have a mixture of traditional working class seats and affluent,liberal,civil service dominated seats and have never given many seats to National.
Remember Peter Dunne used to be a Labour MP as well.

My city,Dunedin,also always returns Labour MP's with the same split motives.....Dunedin North is dominated by the University of Otago with it's liberal students and faculty while Dunedin South is mostly traditional working class.However each boundary change takes both electorates more into the hinterland so I expect Labour's Dunedin bastion will come under real threat in the near future

[Antarctic]

Trivial question for UK/Canada/AUS/NZers:

Is a 3-year term better for "our" system?

I personally feel it's a year too short...no sooner has a new government settled in than they're in election mode.
We've twice overwhelmingly voted down four year terms in referenda so I don't think it's going to change.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

3 years is too short - it takes at least 7-9 months to find your feet, you spend the 9 months before the actual election campaigning, which leaves you with 18 months to actually govern... 4 years is much better... and fixed terms too.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

The longer the better. 5 years is better than 4 etc, but you need ways for the public to express their discontent. In Japan, for example, they elect their Senate about halfway though.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Why is Wellington so left-wing compared to the other major cities?

Capital City. I dunno if the trend holds for the US, but it does here in Canada. In larger cities (eg: Quebec City) the trend is harder to see, but in smaller ones (eg: Regina) it is more clear.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

They have a mixture of traditional working class seats and affluent,liberal,civil service dominated seats and have never given many seats to National.
Remember Peter Dunne used to be a Labour MP as well.

Tradition always comes into it as well, after a while. Wellington has been a basically Labour city for a very long time now.

[Nichlemn]

Anyways, wrt longer term trends and all that, I made half (but only about half, if that) an attempt at comparing 2011 with 1990 here.

There are probably some serious errors; boundary changes in places have been pretty major, for obvious reasons.

Being a resident of the Port Hills electorate and having studied the results by polling place, I can tell you that boundary changes are most likely to blame here. The northern part of the current electorates contains many very strongly Labour central suburbs, while the Southern part contains a lot of hillside and seaside suburbs that are about evenly divided overall. This can seen in the predecessor electorate to Port Hills, Banks Peninsula (which had fewer of those northern areas and included Banks Peninsula itself) was a Labour marginal in the marginally Labour year of 2005, and won by National in 1996.

[Hatman 🍁]

The problem I see with MMP is a good chunk of MPs are from the list and usually those at the top of the list are party hacks who just tow the party line.  At least with FTFP, each MP has to get re-elected by their constituents so they have to be atune to what they want.  In the case of MMP, if you are at the top of the list, you are pretty much guaranteed a seat if you are from either of the two main parties.  While it is true in FTFP some seats may be considered very safe, upsets have and can happen there.  At least an open list rather than closed list is more democratic the problem is most people don't have the time to study the position of each person on the list thus a lot of people would just randomly pick from their party.  If listed by last name alphabetically, I would bet those with surnames starting with A would get chosen a lot while those with Z would almost never make it. 

With parliamentary democracy, there are few free votes anyways, so that's a moot point. Besides, any argument in favour of FPTP against MMP is negated by the fact that the latter is more democratic. If you don't like the party hacks at the top of the ballot, don't vote for that party.

[Nichlemn]

I think there is some merit in promoting a two party system in order to minimise shirking of responsibility among politicians. However, I think there are better ways of doing it than FPP. One possibility is MMP with an exceptionally high threshold (say 30%), possibly with preferential voting in addition to avoid wasted votes. You get all the benefits of majoritarian government without the chance (depending on how overhangs are handled) of a party winning a majority with a minority of the vote.

[minionofmidas]

With FPTP it's fairly easy to arrange safe seats for party hacks as well, so long as you have a solid enough base in society. Besides, hacks are often better people than self-appointed mavericks. Am I allowed to write that?

The really interesting people are the "experts" / single issue complex guys. These are the people you want in a sizable parliament and that MMP (or just plain bound lists) makes it easiest to elect.

That said, I like open lists. And middling-sized constituencies, say 10-20 seats per. And preferably a mechanism to cast preferential party votes too so nobody needs to worry about  thresholds natural or unnatural.

[Хahar 🤔]

I think there is some merit in promoting a two party system in order to minimise shirking of responsibility among politicians. However, I think there are better ways of doing it than FPP. One possibility is MMP with an exceptionally high threshold (say 30%), possibly with preferential voting in addition to avoid wasted votes. You get all the benefits of majoritarian government without the chance (depending on how overhangs are handled) of a party winning a majority with a minority of the vote.

Turkey does that, and it's not very pretty.

[DL]

If the threshhold was 30% in an MMP system you might up with one party having 100% of the seats!

[minionofmidas]

If the threshhold was 30% in an MMP system you might up with one party having 100% of the seats!

Very, very easily.

I've always wondered what would happen, legally, if no party crossed the threshold.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Someone has to win seats at the electorate level, so if nobody crossed the threshold, then nobody would win any list seats.

[Хahar 🤔]

If the threshhold was 30% in an MMP system you might up with one party having 100% of the seats!

Very, very easily.

I've always wondered what would happen, legally, if no party crossed the threshold.

Underhang seats?

[minionofmidas]

Someone has to win seats at the electorate level

Well, yeah. And nationally, three direct seats would also be enough to cross the threshold, though not all states have such a rule.

Saarland doesn't have MMP though... just lists... wonder how they solve that. Spain too has fixed lists and a fixed threshold of 3% of cast (inc. invalid) votes, which is usually meaningless - it's only above the natural threshold in Madrid and Barcelona, and there only barely; it didn't affect seat distribution at all this year. Still, it's there.

[redcommander]

Is Gillard going to take the NZ result as a serious warning for her reelection chances? The ALP in many ways has more to lose since they don't have the option of letting their star MP's who lose their electorates make it into parliament through MMP list seats. It just seems like she hasn't shown a willingness to make her government seem competent.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Some places with pure PR dictate that the top two parties automatically win seats regardless of if they pass the threshold of not.

[Meeker]

Is Gillard going to take the NZ result as a serious warning for her reelection chances? The ALP in many ways has more to lose since they don't have the option of letting their star MP's who lose their electorates make it into parliament through MMP list seats. It just seems like she hasn't shown a willingness to make her government seem competent.

Yes, and Barack Obama took Stephen Harper's victory earlier this year as a troubling sign for his re-election prospects.

[Hash]

Is Gillard going to take the NZ result as a serious warning for her reelection chances? The ALP in many ways has more to lose since they don't have the option of letting their star MP's who lose their electorates make it into parliament through MMP list seats. It just seems like she hasn't shown a willingness to make her government seem competent.

Is this a serious question or are you just making a bad joke?

[redcommander]

Is Gillard going to take the NZ result as a serious warning for her reelection chances? The ALP in many ways has more to lose since they don't have the option of letting their star MP's who lose their electorates make it into parliament through MMP list seats. It just seems like she hasn't shown a willingness to make her government seem competent.

Is this a serious question or are you just making a bad joke?

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/nz-outcome-reveals-hard-truths-on-fate-of-alp-20111128-1o38v.html

[Hash]

Is Gillard going to take the NZ result as a serious warning for her reelection chances? The ALP in many ways has more to lose since they don't have the option of letting their star MP's who lose their electorates make it into parliament through MMP list seats. It just seems like she hasn't shown a willingness to make her government seem competent.

Is this a serious question or are you just making a bad joke?

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/nz-outcome-reveals-hard-truths-on-fate-of-alp-20111128-1o38v.html

Lord, journalists are really paid way too much these days. When was the last time an election in one country had a direct, measurable impact on a subsequent election in another country?

Sarkozy's victory really presaged the 2008 election in Spain, and the CDU's victory in 2009 really impacted France the next year.