Good evening fickle friends and dedicated enemies, we are so glad you managed to attend....
Great business model, tear a bunch of pants and sell new ones to the victims.
Funt
As in "this is my cat, Funt"
Current election results:
This gives a 122 seat house, compared to the 131 seats we are looking at.
The current election results are quite unfair to TPM under my system; mainly because their strategy to shift party vote was well executed. If they got their 2023 result of 3.1% it wouldn't be so distorted. The numbers would shuffle around a bit and that 3% would likely have come from Lab/Grn.
TPM 2023 would have got 4 seats + 1 in overhang; giving them 5 instead of the 6 they actually got in 2023.
2023 would have see a 121 seat house rather than a 122 that we actually got.
I have been thinking about this for a couple of days now; here is my proposal for how to fix the overhang issue:
Note - by fix, I mean maintain the two vote system, whilst also preserving proportionality (as closely as possible); whilst also pissing off the fewest people.
Note 2 - this system does not completely eliminate the overhang, but will significantly limit its influence.
The proposed system will work; from the voters point of view; exactly as the current system does with a party vote and a candidate vote.
Each party is afforded precisely one overhang seat if the vote count comes out that way. Limiting the size of parliament to 120 + (the number parties)/2, rounded up. So with seven parties the limit is 124, this is unlikely but possible.
Any other overhang seats are "flipped"; to the second place getter; starting at the closest races in each electorate. These are the places where a few hundred votes either way would have put the second place candidate in. This is going to piss off a bunch of people, but this is statistically the fewest people that are pissed off.
The only dispensation where a seat cannot be flipped is if the seat is that of the party leader(s).
The allowance of one overhang seat; means that parties HAVE to campaign on the party vote, as more seats means nothing to them beyond that. This also allows for TPM to get say 2.5% of the party vote which would allow 3 seats, but have a 4th from their allowed 1 seat overhang.
The reason I have settled on this as the "best" option, is three fold.
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
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.
500kWh/month seems like a lot.
But in saying that I would have used 120 kWh in a 2.5 day period. So if I regularly travel to Auckland or even Hamilton; maybe needing to visit a sick parent or similar. I could easily get to 500kWh in a month.
I know someone who, until they died, used to travel to Hamilton from Taupō at least twice a week to see their sick dad. This went on for around two years. At around 300km per round trip, that is 6-900km/week. Say average is 700km/wk or 2800km/month. A good EV will get 17kWh/100km on the open road; 20kWh/100km for a mid range EV. So we are talking 474-560kWh/motnh.
You better hope that at least 1/2 of your charging is at home over night.
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!
I would rather see a referendum which specifically says that FPTP is not an option as it is structurally unfair.
Then gives the options.
Some electorate MP's are much better than others. In Taupō we have Louise Upston, we literally never see her at any local events or anything. I have been living here for 15 years, not once has she turned up.
Contrast that to my BIL in Waikanae; his local MP goes to community events every week, is at park run most Saturdays, and is easy to get face time with.
I don't know anyone who isn't a business owner that has had face time with Louise.
We get left off maps.....often!