My inaccuracies re NZ election

Tom Round TomR at orgo.cad.gu.edu.au
Mon Nov 18 01:05:44 PST 1996


Marcus quite correctly pointed out several inaccuracies in my earlier 
posting about the NZ election. I hope I haven't misled anyone. I intended to 
make it fairly plain in my posting that the information was top-of-my-head 
standard only (aside from the vote percentages, which were gleaned from 
perusing a copy of a fax from NZ's chief electoral officer).

Probably the most egregious howler was labelling United as the Christian 
Right, followed closely by overlooking the high [near-threshold] vote for 
the Christian Coalition. Putting these two mistakes together, I think one 
explains the other! ie, I knew there was one conservative religious grouping 
somewhere on the electoral "grid", and matched it with the most obvious 
"blip" that I could find.

Mixing up the post-1990 Liberals with the 1930s Liberals was erroneous but, 
I hope, understandable. Here in Australia our main conservative party has 
changed its title from Nationalist, to Liberal (or maybe that was vice 
versa), to United Australia Party in the 1920s, to Liberal Party again in 
the late 1940s. Thus sometimes history comes full circle, and simulates 
unbroken continuity, in matching party labels to ideologies.

I promise to be more careful in future, but anyway, I hope Mike's questions 
are now amply answered!

I am still digesting Mike's reply to my posting on Approval versus Instant 
Runoff and hope to reply later when I have more free time.

Cheers
Tom

-------------------
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   afreeman at acslink.net.au ('Andrew Freeman'),
   bmusidla at email.dot.gov.au ('Bogey M'),
   crabb.deane at pi.sa.gov.au ('Deane Crabb'),
   dunnmj at ozemail.com.au ('Martin Dunn'),
   election-methods-list at eskimo.com ('Election methods'),
   GGoode at VTRLMEL1.TRL.OZ.AU (Goode, Geoff),
   j.pyke at qut.edu.au (John Pyke, QUT Law School),
   jhtaplin at cygnus.uwa.edu.au ('John Taplin'),
   lee at cs.mu.OZ.AU ('Lee Naish'),
   martinw at cse.unsw.edu.au ('Martin Willis'),
   mdt at ozemail.com.au ('Matthew Townsend')




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