A post from another site from November 2008. An example of where the threshold had the effect of moving the result towards the right, by having 7% of votes wasted. Read it here :
The final results of the 2008 New Zealand general election were announced in the last few days. Analysis of the results shows some interesting things:
- The last seat was a very close run thing between Labour and National. About 40 more votes for Labour would have given Labour one more seat and National one less.
- The threshold had the effect of rendering useless the 4% of list votes given to NZ First.
- Another 3% of votes had no effect on the makeup of Parliament.
- Had the threshold been 4%, NZ First would have won 5 seats. A Labour-led government wouls have been possible, although it would have required all parties except Nat and Act to support it. The hypothetical results table below, calculated according to official method apart from threshold setting.
I’d like to see the rules changed to avoid votes being wasted like this. Two ideas:
- Exclude the top 4-6 parties from the threshold.
- Allow voters to nominate another party to get their list vote in the event of the threshold not being passed.
Two-choice party voting 