I have never given both my party vote and my electorate vote to the same party. It turns out I have been “rorting the system” in a “disturbing” manner all this time.
Never mind that as my politics have evolved, I have split my vote for both the Left and the Right. Never mind that we are given two votes because those votes do different things and if we were meant to use them only for the same party, there would be no point having two votes at all.
New Zealand has operated under an MMP electoral system since 1996 and certainly, at least in the early days, many New Zealanders continued to think of their vote in a first-past-the-post way. But that time has long gone. In 2017, 711,215 voters used their two votes for different parties; in 2020 that number was 926,301 and by 2023 more than a million voters split their vote.
However, as we wait to learn the final result of this year’s election, some are already calling into question the fairness or legitimacy of the vote because of the role vote-splitting has played. Now, it should be noted that it looks more likely that the current coalition will return to government, with or without a deal with the Opportunity Party, and the complaints are coming from the Left.
Former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark told media “New Zealand could well be deemed by observers to have had a flawed election” and is calling for a thorough review of the system.
Her concern appears focused on the overhang created by the National Party winning more electorate seats than its party vote would entitle it to, meaning it picks up an extra seven seats which are added to the 120-MP Parliament. She has had little to say about the five electorate seats Te Pāti Māori won, despite receiving less than 1% of the party vote.
Clark seems to have an issue with the fact that the centre-right overhang was generated by a co-ordinated campaign advocating for the adoption of a deliberate vote-splitting strategy. Again, this ignores that Te Pāti Māori was the first to cotton on to the potential to win overhang seats for this election. It came out of the blocks early, asking its voters to give Te Pāti Māori their electorate vote while casting their party vote for another of the Left bloc parties.
Te Pāti Māori was particularly clever with this strategy. After a hectic term in which its party imploded and two MPs set up as independents, polls were showing its party vote had all but collapsed. Slick as anything, Te Pāti Māori presented a plan to give a vote it had lost already in exchange for the one it really wanted. In my view, its strategic thinking should be admired.
Labour’s vote-splitting ploys
There is another inconsistency in Clark’s outrage. An historical one. You see, back in 1999 Labour engineered a smaller scale vote-splitting project after realising it needed the Greens to get into Parliament in order to oust the National government.
This was not the first time such a ploy had been used. The Right did it in 1996, with National giving the nod to its supporters in Wellington Central to vote for ACT’s Richard Prebble.
In 1999, however, Labour had spent the campaign blasting the Greens and discouraging New Zealanders from voting for them. But as the big day neared and it became clear that Labour would need the Greens, a plan for localised vote-splitting was hatched. Some might even call that “rorting the system” – although I suspect Helen Clark would not, given that she was the architect of the scheme and it saw her become Prime Minister.
Chloe Swarbrick has, likewise, been vocal over the weekend about how “the system has been gamed” this election by vote-splitter. This is puzzling as when Swarbrick first won her Auckland Central electorate seat in 2020, more of the people who gave her their electorate vote gave their party vote to Labour than they did to the Greens.
She is in her seat only by virtue of the decision made by many to split their votes for her. The following election, in 2023, Swarbrick retained the seat thanks to Labour’s Auckland Central voters being twice as likely to give her their electorate vote as they were to give it to their own candidate. Even 1,311 National voters gave their electorate vote to Swarbrick.
The main difference between all these examples and the overhang created on the centre-right this election is scale. Though a one-seat cup-of-tea deal can make a huge difference to the overall mathematics of an election, the sheer size of the overhang this time around certainly does shake things up. We are looking at 11 additional seats being added to Parliament pending special votes and recounts. Four on the left; seven on the right.
Dangerous talk
Perhaps this does mean we should have a conversation about MMP. We tend to have one every few elections anyway! Reviewing our democratic systems and ensuring they are fit for purpose is a healthy thing to do.
What is definitely less healthy is the immediate weaponisation of a quirk of the system to suggest that our election was not valid. Telling international media that it was “flawed” and thus insinuating corruption is irresponsible, Machiavellian, and actually pretty Trumpian.
There are few things more destabilising to a country than distrust in its democratic systems. The peaceful and co-operative transfer of power – or indeed the acceptance of its retention – is fundamental to social cohesion and confidence in political legitimacy.
There are countries around the world where no matter which leader or party wins, the other side will allege corruption or illegitimacy. Sometimes those allegations are entirely accurate, but sometimes they are simply the product of irresponsible and desperate politicians who would put the stability of their country below their own desire for power. It is extremely disappointing to see the sprouts of that kind of despicable politics after a New Zealand election.
Election denial
Clark, Swarbrick and others on the left have also pointed to the changes to electoral law that removed election-day enrolment as further reason for the result of the election to be viewed with suspicion.
It is widely accepted that the requirement for people to be enrolled two weeks prior to election day likely benefits the Right because younger, more disorganised New Zealanders are statistically more likely to vote Left. However, there are different barriers for all kinds of voters to overcome and ultimately, it is up to an individual and their family to do so. Other parties which attract a much older cohort of voters might be disadvantaged by the fact that their voters are less mobile and are dependent on others to get them to a voting booth.
To cast this as “voter suppression” is disingenuous. Whatever the motivations for the law change, it was actually a law reversal because the ability to enrol on election day was introduced only under Jacinda Ardern in 2020. Every election before 2020 surely cannot be viewed as compromised by voter suppression, but that would have to be the case if the Left were consistent in its complaints.
In fact, very few countries around the world allow election-day enrolment. Canada does. Some states in the United States do. Some Balkan states allow for it if there has been an error. But Australian Federal elections cut off enrolment seven days after the writ is issued. In England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland it is 12 days beforehand, in Ireland it is 15 days, Sweden it is 30 days, and in Germany it is a whopping 45 days before the election.
So sure, let’s have a conversation about how we can improve the system with automatic enrolment, but banana republic-style election denial based on enrolment deadlines is reckless and should be condemned.
Voters ‘not that dim’
It isn’t only the Left that are unhappy with the vote-splitting strategy. But while the Left’s complaints are self-interested, the ones coming from the Right are, frankly, evidence of self-harm and an insult to their voters.
Anyone with a basic grasp of mathematics can see that the seven-seat overhang generated by National winning more electorate seats than its party vote entitles it to is what has propelled the centre-Right bloc into pole position as we wait to confirm the result. But if anyone thought that National’s insistence on “two ticks blue” – although it would have needed an impossible number of party votes to get even one list MP over the line – would disappear after the election, they were wrong.
Sir John Key told National voters that vote-splitting was the “opposite of clever”. The National Party reported “Split Your Vote” campaigner Harry Mowbray to the Electoral Commission. Each and every National MP had it drilled into them that “Party Vote National” was their primary message.
Former Reserve Bank Governor and National Party leader (and ACT Party leader) Dr Don Brash, a proponent of vote-splitting, accused Christopher Luxon of “misleading the public”. And it now seems evident that had more National voters split their vote, that overhang would have been even bigger and we would not be waiting for the final results.
Brash also alleged that National was “putting party over country”. While it is understandable that it would make most parties deeply uncomfortable to tell voters to give their party vote to some other party, if your path back into government depends on it, wouldn’t you just suck it up?
It seemed at some points during the campaign that National would rather go into opposition, chanting “two ticks blue”, than entertain any notion of a strategy to get the coalition as a whole over the line.
There is potential long-term damage in how National has handled this election. Treating your own voters as if they are incapable of understanding a basic voting strategy – or as if they won’t see through blatant lies – is not a way to foster future confidence. As Brash pointed out: “Our voters are not that dim.”
Neither are National’s donors. In fact, the largest individual donor to National this year is Harry Mowbray’s own son, Zuru founder Nick Mowbray. The senior Mowbray has told media that it is “bloody clear” and there is “no question” that the strategic vote-splitting campaign has played an important role in getting the Right bloc into a position to govern. He went further, saying that leaders of National and ACT “should be feeling very embarrassed”.
Mowbray accuses National and ACT of behaving with self-interest instead of doing what it would take to form a government without Opportunity.
“You’re going to have to point the finger at David Seymour, you’re going to have to point the finger at Luxon,” he said. His grievance with Seymour is that he did not hand over Epsom to National.
National has doubled down on its resistance to the strategy, post-election. Simeon Brown denied that vote-splitting has benefited National and Christopher Luxon dodged the question altogether, with one of his classic responses: “Well I just say to you, look, I’ve said what I’ve said on that. I’m focused on now going forward”.
The National leader may want to shrug off the issue, but it could become an even bigger headache for the party. Following National’s post-election comments, Harry Mowbray called them “f***ing idiots” and pointed out they were using “Mowbray money” to fight against his campaign. He said he has “talked to big donors from National this morning, a number of them, and there’s going to be a rethink”.
Our political class is, in a word, discombobulated. On the left and the right, they are aggrieved, their egos are bruised, they loathe the uncertainty of not having a result and do not like the system being used in ways that are out of their control.
Perhaps the only lot that are truly happy are the new kids on the block from Opportunity, but potential coalition negotiations will considerably sap that enthusiasm. Meanwhile, New Zealanders will wake up and go to work. We will pay our taxes, wince at our grocery bills and hope that whoever forms a government remembers whom they serve.
Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was sourced HERE
However, as we wait to learn the final result of this year’s election, some are already calling into question the fairness or legitimacy of the vote because of the role vote-splitting has played. Now, it should be noted that it looks more likely that the current coalition will return to government, with or without a deal with the Opportunity Party, and the complaints are coming from the Left.
Former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark told media “New Zealand could well be deemed by observers to have had a flawed election” and is calling for a thorough review of the system.
Her concern appears focused on the overhang created by the National Party winning more electorate seats than its party vote would entitle it to, meaning it picks up an extra seven seats which are added to the 120-MP Parliament. She has had little to say about the five electorate seats Te Pāti Māori won, despite receiving less than 1% of the party vote.
Clark seems to have an issue with the fact that the centre-right overhang was generated by a co-ordinated campaign advocating for the adoption of a deliberate vote-splitting strategy. Again, this ignores that Te Pāti Māori was the first to cotton on to the potential to win overhang seats for this election. It came out of the blocks early, asking its voters to give Te Pāti Māori their electorate vote while casting their party vote for another of the Left bloc parties.
Te Pāti Māori was particularly clever with this strategy. After a hectic term in which its party imploded and two MPs set up as independents, polls were showing its party vote had all but collapsed. Slick as anything, Te Pāti Māori presented a plan to give a vote it had lost already in exchange for the one it really wanted. In my view, its strategic thinking should be admired.
Labour’s vote-splitting ploys
There is another inconsistency in Clark’s outrage. An historical one. You see, back in 1999 Labour engineered a smaller scale vote-splitting project after realising it needed the Greens to get into Parliament in order to oust the National government.
This was not the first time such a ploy had been used. The Right did it in 1996, with National giving the nod to its supporters in Wellington Central to vote for ACT’s Richard Prebble.
In 1999, however, Labour had spent the campaign blasting the Greens and discouraging New Zealanders from voting for them. But as the big day neared and it became clear that Labour would need the Greens, a plan for localised vote-splitting was hatched. Some might even call that “rorting the system” – although I suspect Helen Clark would not, given that she was the architect of the scheme and it saw her become Prime Minister.
Chloe Swarbrick has, likewise, been vocal over the weekend about how “the system has been gamed” this election by vote-splitter. This is puzzling as when Swarbrick first won her Auckland Central electorate seat in 2020, more of the people who gave her their electorate vote gave their party vote to Labour than they did to the Greens.
She is in her seat only by virtue of the decision made by many to split their votes for her. The following election, in 2023, Swarbrick retained the seat thanks to Labour’s Auckland Central voters being twice as likely to give her their electorate vote as they were to give it to their own candidate. Even 1,311 National voters gave their electorate vote to Swarbrick.
The main difference between all these examples and the overhang created on the centre-right this election is scale. Though a one-seat cup-of-tea deal can make a huge difference to the overall mathematics of an election, the sheer size of the overhang this time around certainly does shake things up. We are looking at 11 additional seats being added to Parliament pending special votes and recounts. Four on the left; seven on the right.
Dangerous talk
Perhaps this does mean we should have a conversation about MMP. We tend to have one every few elections anyway! Reviewing our democratic systems and ensuring they are fit for purpose is a healthy thing to do.
What is definitely less healthy is the immediate weaponisation of a quirk of the system to suggest that our election was not valid. Telling international media that it was “flawed” and thus insinuating corruption is irresponsible, Machiavellian, and actually pretty Trumpian.
There are few things more destabilising to a country than distrust in its democratic systems. The peaceful and co-operative transfer of power – or indeed the acceptance of its retention – is fundamental to social cohesion and confidence in political legitimacy.
There are countries around the world where no matter which leader or party wins, the other side will allege corruption or illegitimacy. Sometimes those allegations are entirely accurate, but sometimes they are simply the product of irresponsible and desperate politicians who would put the stability of their country below their own desire for power. It is extremely disappointing to see the sprouts of that kind of despicable politics after a New Zealand election.
Election denial
Clark, Swarbrick and others on the left have also pointed to the changes to electoral law that removed election-day enrolment as further reason for the result of the election to be viewed with suspicion.
It is widely accepted that the requirement for people to be enrolled two weeks prior to election day likely benefits the Right because younger, more disorganised New Zealanders are statistically more likely to vote Left. However, there are different barriers for all kinds of voters to overcome and ultimately, it is up to an individual and their family to do so. Other parties which attract a much older cohort of voters might be disadvantaged by the fact that their voters are less mobile and are dependent on others to get them to a voting booth.
To cast this as “voter suppression” is disingenuous. Whatever the motivations for the law change, it was actually a law reversal because the ability to enrol on election day was introduced only under Jacinda Ardern in 2020. Every election before 2020 surely cannot be viewed as compromised by voter suppression, but that would have to be the case if the Left were consistent in its complaints.
In fact, very few countries around the world allow election-day enrolment. Canada does. Some states in the United States do. Some Balkan states allow for it if there has been an error. But Australian Federal elections cut off enrolment seven days after the writ is issued. In England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland it is 12 days beforehand, in Ireland it is 15 days, Sweden it is 30 days, and in Germany it is a whopping 45 days before the election.
So sure, let’s have a conversation about how we can improve the system with automatic enrolment, but banana republic-style election denial based on enrolment deadlines is reckless and should be condemned.
Voters ‘not that dim’
It isn’t only the Left that are unhappy with the vote-splitting strategy. But while the Left’s complaints are self-interested, the ones coming from the Right are, frankly, evidence of self-harm and an insult to their voters.
Anyone with a basic grasp of mathematics can see that the seven-seat overhang generated by National winning more electorate seats than its party vote entitles it to is what has propelled the centre-Right bloc into pole position as we wait to confirm the result. But if anyone thought that National’s insistence on “two ticks blue” – although it would have needed an impossible number of party votes to get even one list MP over the line – would disappear after the election, they were wrong.
Sir John Key told National voters that vote-splitting was the “opposite of clever”. The National Party reported “Split Your Vote” campaigner Harry Mowbray to the Electoral Commission. Each and every National MP had it drilled into them that “Party Vote National” was their primary message.
Former Reserve Bank Governor and National Party leader (and ACT Party leader) Dr Don Brash, a proponent of vote-splitting, accused Christopher Luxon of “misleading the public”. And it now seems evident that had more National voters split their vote, that overhang would have been even bigger and we would not be waiting for the final results.
Brash also alleged that National was “putting party over country”. While it is understandable that it would make most parties deeply uncomfortable to tell voters to give their party vote to some other party, if your path back into government depends on it, wouldn’t you just suck it up?
It seemed at some points during the campaign that National would rather go into opposition, chanting “two ticks blue”, than entertain any notion of a strategy to get the coalition as a whole over the line.
There is potential long-term damage in how National has handled this election. Treating your own voters as if they are incapable of understanding a basic voting strategy – or as if they won’t see through blatant lies – is not a way to foster future confidence. As Brash pointed out: “Our voters are not that dim.”
Neither are National’s donors. In fact, the largest individual donor to National this year is Harry Mowbray’s own son, Zuru founder Nick Mowbray. The senior Mowbray has told media that it is “bloody clear” and there is “no question” that the strategic vote-splitting campaign has played an important role in getting the Right bloc into a position to govern. He went further, saying that leaders of National and ACT “should be feeling very embarrassed”.
Mowbray accuses National and ACT of behaving with self-interest instead of doing what it would take to form a government without Opportunity.
“You’re going to have to point the finger at David Seymour, you’re going to have to point the finger at Luxon,” he said. His grievance with Seymour is that he did not hand over Epsom to National.
National has doubled down on its resistance to the strategy, post-election. Simeon Brown denied that vote-splitting has benefited National and Christopher Luxon dodged the question altogether, with one of his classic responses: “Well I just say to you, look, I’ve said what I’ve said on that. I’m focused on now going forward”.
The National leader may want to shrug off the issue, but it could become an even bigger headache for the party. Following National’s post-election comments, Harry Mowbray called them “f***ing idiots” and pointed out they were using “Mowbray money” to fight against his campaign. He said he has “talked to big donors from National this morning, a number of them, and there’s going to be a rethink”.
Our political class is, in a word, discombobulated. On the left and the right, they are aggrieved, their egos are bruised, they loathe the uncertainty of not having a result and do not like the system being used in ways that are out of their control.
Perhaps the only lot that are truly happy are the new kids on the block from Opportunity, but potential coalition negotiations will considerably sap that enthusiasm. Meanwhile, New Zealanders will wake up and go to work. We will pay our taxes, wince at our grocery bills and hope that whoever forms a government remembers whom they serve.
Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was sourced HERE
1 comment:
Opportunity, happy? Following their relentless spruiking by the MSM to get them into parliament (and make some headlines for lazy journos) they succeeded, only to find they’ll be irrelevant, sitting in the back seats of whichever coalition succeeds in the end.
As for then generating headlines ongoing, no chance.
Unlike the other nonentities, TPM, TOP cant even do the occasional mad haka to garner some attention given that that would amount to ‘cultural appropriation and counter to their espousal of the ‘principles’ of Te Tiriti (whatever that is)
Post a Comment
Thank you for joining the discussion. Breaking Views welcomes respectful contributions that enrich the debate. Please ensure your comments are not defamatory, derogatory or disruptive. We appreciate your cooperation.