[EM] NZ Percent Seats- Percent Votes

[DEMOREP1 at aol.com]

Some more analysis of the NZ MMP system--
----
New Zealand Parliament Election, Nov. 1999

PS Minus PV     PARTY     Electorate (District) Seats won
PS = Percent of Seats, PV = Percent of Votes
High to Low
2.09 * Labour Party 41
2.00 * National Party 22
0.67 * Green Party 1
0.59 * Alliance 1
0.46 * ACT New Zealand 0
0.30 * United NZ 1
-0.01 Republican Party
-0.02 The People's Choice Party
-0.02 Freedom Movement
-0.05 NMP
-0.06 OneNZ Party
-0.08 Natural Law Party
-0.09 * New Zealand First Party 1
-0.14 South Island Party
-0.15 McGillicuddy Serious Party
-0.16 Animals First
-0.19 Mauri Pacific
-0.25 Mana Maori Movement
-0.29 Libertarians
-1.10 Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
-1.12 Future New Zealand
-2.38 Christian Heritage Party of New Zealand

0.00 Total 67
 
6.11 Plus/Minus amounts

* Parties winning seats
67 Electorate (District) Seats, 53 Party List Seats, Total 120 Seats

100 Percent/120 Seats = 0.833 Percent/Seat

Data- 12.48 AM, 10 Dec 1999

Thus, 6.11 Percent of the Votes were devalued/wasted (especially those of the 
3 parties at the bottom who each got more than 0.833 percent of the total 
votes but got no seats due to the 5 percent of the party votes minimum in 
order to get seats if no district is won).
Note that 4 of the parties each won only 1 Electorate (District) seat.
United NZ and New Zealand First Party both had less than 5 percent of the 
total party votes.

Some obvious remedies for the wasted votes problem- 
Make the quota to get a seat equal to Total votes/Total seats (abolish the 5 
percent minimum).
Permit the voters to make additional choices (1, 2, etc.) or have the party 
leaders transfer the votes to another party for parties which do not get the 
Total votes/total seats minimum or some arbitrary minimum (such as the 5 
percent minimum).

It is totally unacceptable to waste any votes when such obvious remedies 
exist.