Bryce Edwards spoke with Jesse Mulligan on his Afternoons Show on the RNZ National Programme about Monday 11 May 2026 on the subject of the Opportunity Party. One issue raised was that small parties have difficulty advancing because of the issue of “wasted votes”.
This led to the following interview:
Here is the main part of the message I sent to Jesse
“”
I’ve just read an article by Bryce Edwards where he mentioned discussing the TOP party with you on your programme. He talked about wasted votes, a grand coalition, and about the suffocating effect of the 5% threshold.
There is a simple solution to this problem.
- It has its origins in Germany and was seemingly first suggested in NZ by a German law student at Victoria University in an academic paper about 2003.
- Similar ideas were proposed by several submitters to the 2012 Electoral system Review.
- It has been advocated for in Germany by Bjorn Benken of Mehr Demokratie.
- I wrote about it on the Democracy project website in 2021
- https://democracyproject.nz/2021/02/04/ed-hitchcock-a-simple-way-to-solve-the-problem-of-the-mmp-threshold/
- I made submissions about it to the 2023 Independent Electoral system review, where the idea merited what you might call an ‘honourable mention’ in the final report. See section 4.34 and 4.59 of the report, which I’ve copied to:
- https://onthethreshold.nz/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/4116finalreportsection2.pdf
The solution:
Add a second party vote column to the ballot paper with the explanation:
If my first choice party does not pass the threshold, give my party vote to my second choice party instead.
This small change takes away (no exaggeration!) all of the problems caused by the threshold and the risk of wasted votes. Consider the following:
- Nobody would need to risk wasting their vote.
- No need for tactical voting.
- New parties could start without harming their allied parties.
- Voting stays simple with fast results.
- Being offered a second choice is common: Think about asking someone to get you an ice cream.
- There is no need to agree on new threshold rules.
This proposed change is, I say, better than reducing the threshold. Reducing the threshold does not provide any of the advantages I’ve listed above for the second choice of party vote.
Bryce Edwards’ article notes that people think that a grand coalition would be a good idea in NZ. Under MMP we are still waiting for any new party to win seats without support of an existing MP. The existing vote-discarding threshold makes a pretty insurmountable obstacle to either of these.
The second choice of party vote gives new parties a much greater chance of success. Because they no longer take votes from their friends and potentially make those votes go to waste.
“”
Two-choice party voting or The Spare Vote 