Harry Mowbray calls Coatesville mansion summit to get rid of MMP (www.rnz.co.nz)

submitted 5 days ago by ooo_shiny to c/newzealand

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Alternate title: wealthy git does wealthy git things.

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[-] Dave 8 points 5 days ago

His interpretation that the votes are wasted is perhaps true, but the accusation that voters won't get what they voted for is not. Seats are split by proportion of votes, splitting votes to get an overhang is not getting what they vote for, it's manipulating the system.

I admit I said this was smart when Te Pati Māori suggested it, but for a party that small it didn't matter. It's no less smart here but this guy is looking to do widescale vote manipulation.

The supplementary member system he wants he has only chosen because he's calculated that minor parties would get a smaller share and have less influence. But arguably this is less fair as minor parties would also have fewer seats than their share of the vote.

[-] absGeekNZ 2 points 13 hours ago

It wasn't smart when TPM made it official strategy; I was wrong thinking it wouldn't matter. I basically said that they were just formalizing an existing practice that their electorate already did.

It was well known that a lot of TMP supporters split their vote; but they still got 2-3% of the party vote. Meaning the overhang they caused was usually 1-3 seats. Not a big deal in a 120-123 seat system, and I don't recall that their overhang ever changing the result of the election.

But as soon as they made it official strategy; the right had social license to pursue the same; but with way more money and reach. I'm sure the right were already thinking about doing this type of election-engineering; but the social license afforded to them by TPM's action means that there has been almost no public backlash from this.

I was wrong, it was a big deal; overhang engineering has opened the flood gates; next election it will be much worse, unless we can get a fix in this term!

[-] Dave 1 points 10 hours ago

Yeah agreed, the flood gates are open now and we need to stem it or elections will become less democratic, and this is true even if the left starts vote splitting as well to balance it.

[-] absGeekNZ 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

It could get really ridiculous; there is a theoretical maximum of 78 overhand seats. 71 from main electorates and 7 from Maori electorates.

Obviously this is super unlikely; but if Nat/Lab said give all of your party vote so X and just give us electorate vote; some big overhang numbers could eventuate.

[-] Dave 1 points 9 hours ago

Is it super unlikely? Or is it going to start to be the only way to get in if "the other side are doing it"?

[-] absGeekNZ 2 points 9 hours ago

Unlikely to hit 60+ overhang; but I could see 20-30 seat overhang becoming "normal" if we don't fix it.

With minister salaries and extras; 30 "extra" MP's is getting dangerously close to $10M/yr

[-] Dave 1 points 8 hours ago

Realistically $10m is nothing in the budget of the country. My concerns are around democracy and the disproportion from people manipulating the system. As someone else mentioned in another post, Germany didn't really solve the issue but disincentivised it by basically cutting off the overhang if the party didn't get enough votes. If the overhangs are going to come from manipulation of the system instead of genuine desire for particular representatives then we should probably do something similar. I'd be ok with some limit like max overhang of 1 per party or something that would allow some flexibility without the purposeful manipulation. That would make the vote splitting strategy a lot riskier compared to the payoff. It might incentivise more smaller parties by TBH that's what I'd like.

[-] ooo_shiny 6 points 5 days ago

I think overhangs are inevitable if you’re going to combine electorates with a party vote, and until now they’ve been accepted fairly gracefully as a natural byproduct of the system we have.

I think people can try to engineer an overhang but it’s a double-edged sword: National now seems to regret the Epsom arrangement and in general the current possibility of an arrangement where they get many electorates but not much party vote means that they have to contend with the rise of Act and NZ First as significant right wing parties.

Any change towards a system that favours a two-party arrangement is one I’m not in favour of — it is good that we have representation of many perspectives in parliament, even if I disagree with at least half of them.

I’m still okay with the current system (though I want ranked choice voting rather than FPP) and I resent having to argue to defend it simply because this guy is splashing his money around.

[-] Dave 3 points 5 days ago

Yeah I agree with you, big parties probably don't want to engineer an overhang, but when it's some guy running the campaign they don't have much choice in the matter.

I also agree (along with most of the country since we recently had a referendum) that our MMP system is generally working. I'd also like a ranked choice style vote as well!

[-] Mr_Fish 1 points 4 days ago

If we had ranked choice voting for the electorates, we could remove overhangs. Basically if there's an overhang, the seat with the thinnest majority gets the votes transferred