RODNEY HIDE: Two votes. Use them.
National Party pollster David Farrar had this to say this week on his blog: "There are two paths back into Parliament for Chris Bishop – a win in Hutt South, or the National Party having at least two list MPs. Both of these paths are looking far from certain right now."
That's about as big an admission that we are going to get that on present polling National will get no list MPs at all. National is polling below 30 percent, which means the 800,000 or so Kiwis who party vote National are not delivering one extra MP. They may as well not tick the party vote box.
If just 20 percent of them party-voted NZ First or ACT, they would deliver six or seven extra MPs. Their votes would count.
And making your vote count is vital under MMP. We have had 10 MMP elections. Eight of them have had the government decided by five or fewer MPs. That's why voting smart matters.
At the last election, the voters who gave their electorate vote to ACT or NZ First delivered no extra MPs for either party. Had they voted for the National candidate, National would have won an extra nine electorate seats. Had National been in overhang those votes would have meant nine extra MPs for the centre right.
If you are a centre right voter and you are giving your electorate vote to any party other than National, you are not helping. Likewise, if you are giving your party vote to anyone but NZ First or ACT, you are not helping.
For the centre right to win, vote National in every electorate, including Epsom and Tamaki. And Party Vote either NZ First or ACT in every electorate. It isn’t hard. Yes, there will be extra MPs in Parliament -- but there will be a Centre Right Government. And it should be a better one than the one we have had these past three years. Extra MPs is a small price to pay compared to having the Green Party and Te Parti Maori calling the shots.
The National Party and their allies say calling for split or strategic voting is anti-democratic. I say, how can voting ever be anti-democratic especially when you are using both votes to best effect? The good people of Epsom have done that for seven elections in a row. The logic now is for them to electorate vote National. That's the way they continue to use their votes to best effect.
You get two votes. Use them. Split them. And split them the right way.
Rodney Hide is a former Minister and ACT Party leader
We introduced MMP to get proportional representation with the ability to pick a local MP if you liked that person better than the party one. The overhang is a bug not a feature, But it is there and an overhang of this magnitude will be a very non-proportional parliament .... perhaps we shouldn't care ...
agree, vote splitting is hardly anti-democratic - voting is the very foundation of the democratic process... however the system that facilitates vote splitting could be called into question...
At last, seems electorate votes will get candidates into parliament that deserve to be there. Every candidate should pass the electorate vote before taking a seat in parliament. The votes a party gets determines who gets a seat, A party that gets 10% of the vote gets 10% of the seats, picked from the highest polling electorate candidates, no more party HQ deciding who gets into parliament!
Of course Rodney is weighing up the options for the benefit of ACT. No one would expect otherwise.
The percentage of party votes makes up the composition of parliament. A party vote for National determines how many seats they will have in government.
This is why National is asking people to give BOTH Party AND Electoral votes to National.
Luxo can't abandon the two tick strategy only for political reasons. He clearly knows that interNational will not win any list seats but cannot afford to be seen to be abandoning Willis, Bishop, Brownlee et al in the eyes of the public. They must feel deeply foolish beneath the surface but perception is everything in politics.
There's no other reason for it, and this explains their position adequately.