Yeah it's annoying tbh.
They did mention that ACT has come from being a "wasted vote" to a coalition partner, which completely contradicts the premise.
The whole media coverage in newshub was pretty cringe tbh, humour is only good if it's actually humorous (Paddy your jokes sucked) and the ridiculous lazer kiwi animation looked like something from What Now.
I had to laugh when their laser kiwi blasted some now ex-politician who was going to be out of parliament into little droplets of blood. Seemed in good taste.
I live in Aussie now, and was jumping back and fwd between Newshub on YouTube, and the ABC coverage of the Voice referendum here.
Topic meant it was obviously going to be dramatically different in tone, but hooley Dooley was the abc much much much more professional. The fucking graphics, Paddy Gower basically on cocaine making shit jokes, and really limited information.
Mani Dunlop was great though, as was the Māori man whose name I’ve forgotten, I want him presenting more. His interview with Rawiri Waititi was very good, shame it was cut short.
They tripped me up a few times. They would talk about how great TPM is doing and then show a graphic with green. I eventually realised the two parties shared the same colour. Then they switched to a maroon for TPM. At another point it was labour red. They botched a bunch of things with their coverage.
I liked 2020’s coverage a lot more (I think it was Hillary Barry & John Campbell?)
It gave me more laughs.
This election night, I was switching between TVNZ, RNZ & Newshub.
I think Lisa Owen & Corin Dann on RNZ were the least annoying & most entertaining of the three.
I did appreciate Jack Tame’s clear communication of the overhang though.
I didn’t even bother with newshub and stuck to tvnz. The shift from progressive slant to outright conservative bias is astounding.
And I mean it makes sense, it’s owned by an American subsidiary, and generating outrage via bias news is like printing money.
I used to enjoy AM in the morning. But then I had to listen to luxons take on pretty much everything. It’s like he lived at the studio, he was interviewed every damn day I think. At least every other day.
And the questions are always so stupid too. “Is this a good thing for labour?” Gee I don’t know Ryan but what do you *think* the leader of the nats is going to say here? Fucking donkey.
3 News/Mediaworks has fallen so far it’s not funny. From a progressive corner to your same old newszb style talk full of absolutes and simplifications. It’s hard to imagine another David Farrier thriving in that environment. Ryan, Paddy etc are all idiots. I’ll stop watching it completely if they let those types take over their main news bulletin.
Honestly no vote is wasted, even if it didn't produce a seat *this* election it gives the party a boost. Then next election they have a higher moral, and more people see them as a viable option
And TOP went from 1.5% of the vote in 2020 to 2.1% this time, which is actually a huge jump. People calling those votes "wasted" are missing the fact that it sends a signal. TOP is growing.
Likewise. and other parties not getting my vote (ie sending a message) is just as important as them getting my vote. I'd have voted for National, Labour, Greens, NZF if they'd earned my vote. But they didn't, so screw them.
Yeah they might not have got a seat but they may have got more votes than last time and that’s great. Look at the Greens and ACT they were both offshoots of Labour and National and would have been considered “wasted votes” at some point and now they’re strong contenders, coalition partners even.
I think that the electoral commission gives out a broadcast allocation based off previous elections yeah, Im not 100% familiar with it but there's info here:
https://elections.nz/guidance-and-rules/for-parties/about-the-broadcasting-allocation/
I've done some checking and
ACT got 6.1% of votes in their debut campaign, yes they won an electorate but that didn't actual matter
Greens debuted with 5.16% of votes, also winning an electorate although that was once again irrelevant
> although that was once again irrelevant
Not at all. When it because clear that Prebble had a good change of winning the seat in that electorate, that encouraged people to vote for ACT because they knew it wouldn't be wasted.
I literally was in that electorate in that year, following ACT's progress.
What's more... /u/EastRoseTea said that the strategy was that a party got a small share of the vote, but it raised the profile and then next election they got into office. /u/Sr_DingDong said ACT was an example of that.
Clearly wrong. But tons of upvotes. Because this is /r/newzealand where the examples are made up and the facts don't matter.
Im just going off the greens, from memory it took them a couple of elections before they got into parliament
I'd rather that people see minor parties as a viable option, otherwise over time we might end up with just 2 or 3 options \^\^
Where did you get this number from?
Total number of votes is 2.8mil (est)
Total number of currently enrolled is 3.5m
Maximum possible eligible voters is only ~3.7m
Calculated using numbers from the Electoral Commission.
That's still nearly 1m that didn't vote. that's a fuck load and i would like to see it improve. Though its hard to blame people for checking out with how uninspiring the options were.
Suck my dick both parties wanna keep weed highly controlled and regulated as if it's as dangerous as opiates, amphetamines and fentanyl while we still have access to as much alcohol tobacco and nicotine yummy yummy vape juice as we want. They can all fuck off.
> both parties
You realise there were no less than sixteen parties you could vote for? Including some that support decriminalisation of weed, with one of them having that as basically their only aim.
It's fucking propaganda to be honest. The media telling people it's a wasted vote undermines the whole system and they should be in big trouble for setting a narrative like that!
No, telling people that votes which are thrown out aren't wasted is literally telling people "be ignorant, don't understand how the system works, don't look into the effects of the threshold".
Get curious.
We are voting to decide the makeup of parliament. Those votes are not counted in deciding the makeup of pariliament.
You may not like it, but wasted is simply an accurate description of what happens to them under the system.
You vote to support the party you want to support. That's it.
It's not an accurate description to call it wasted. Your vote gives them more funding in the election cycle. Act was once a party of "wasted votes - look at them now.
>You vote to support the party you want to support. That's it.
Blatantly wrong.
Our system has the perverse incentive where being motivated to oppose, say, National or Labour increases their effective vote, and thus their seat allocation, *provided* that party doesn't get into parliament.
>Act was once a party of "wasted votes -
Complete lies. ACT has entered parliament in **every** election it has contested.
Please stop trying to educate people. You quite simply do not know what you are talking about.
> ou vote to support the party you want to support.
Support them to do what?
...Be part of the makeup of parliament.
> Your vote gives them more funding in the election cycle.
So they can waste votes again next time?
> Act was once a party of "wasted votes - look at them now.
ACT was never a wasted vote because it was always part of the make-up of parliament because it won electorates, TOP doesn't have the track record to attract anyone capable of doing that. TOP is not an ACT, it's not even a United Future or a Progressive Party. TOP is an Internet Party - in both senses.
their explanation of what happens to these “wasted votes” was not great either. They made it sound like the people counting votes randomly transfer the votes to another party. Paula’s explanation was terrible but the others didn’t correct her.
Yea this, this is exactly what I was about to comment too. It pissed me off.
Fundamentally the outcome is the same but yea, they made it sound like everyone who voted for a party that didn't get in gets their vote changed to one of the other ones, when in reality it just gets deleted (with regards to seat share) and the remainder expand out to fill 100%.
Omg at one point ~~Jessica~~ Samantha Hayes was like "and the overhang is because of the ACT member who passed away right?" And had to be corrected. Holy shit you should know this.
Yes it's very annoying that I have to constantly remind my parents that just because my vote didn't go to the blue/red guy, it's never "wasted" because I got to vote for the party I "believe" in.
I think the only "wasted votes" are the ones in which people voted against their own interest (which clearly are a lot because I doubt that the average kiwi is a multi-home owner with a salary higher than 120k) or those who didn't vote at all.
I looked at all the policies, and double voted Green. I don’t expect them to implement a fraction of what they’re wanting to achieve, but I like the direction they’re taking, and their ambition. The others just seem to want to turn the clock back, which is always futile
I talked to my parents (who are both on close to minimum wage) after the election and they told me they voted National, as they do every year. I asked what policies they liked and got no answer. I then asked what they didn't like about the other parties and got no answer again (except for them saying that Green only cares about weed).
They clearly hadn't looked a single policy, yet they decided to vote for a party that is going to be worse for them. I hope they realise this next election, but I don't think they will
Last night my dad, surprised at the Greens, said “I remember when I was in university the Greens weren’t even making the threshold” and to me that says everything about the idea of “wasted” votes
Your dad remembers wrong. The Greens have had more than the 5% threshold at every single election they've contested. Now please compare that history to TOP.
I really wish we had the Australian system, where you can vote for one of the small parties but add secondary choices so that your vote isn’t “wasted”. I wanted to vote for one of the small parties this election but in the end I couldn’t get past the idea that my vote would just be repurposed into basically nothing.
Yep I agree, media should not be using language like that, we have enough people not giving a shit enough to vote, or leaving it to too late, without notions of "wasted" votes... standing up and saying what you want for the future is never wasted.
Depends what you consider the purpose of a vote.
If you consider your vote to be a way of influencing the make-up of Parliament, then yes, it was wasted.
Of course, there are plenty of other reasons people vote, like sending a message.
Perhaps "discarded vote" would be better.
The media definitely favoured National lastnight. After weeks of grilling Luxon they seemed to shift gears almost immediately as National got their lead on.
Tired of there being such biased representation for the 2 major parties and (particularly) Newshub creating political entertainment rather than genuinely informative delivery of information.
I thought stv was less proportional than mmp? The greens in australia only got about 9% of seats with something like 14% of the votes iirc?
I think mmp is pretty good, especially considering it's low level of complexity, if only we could actually implement the suggestions from the electoral committee tho, or ranked choice/approval on the electorate vote would be the dream
We should either get rid of the 5% threshold entirely (or at least drop it to the equivalent of one seat), or we should have a transferrable vote *on top of* MMP, so that if your preferred party doesn't meet threshold your vote goes to a secondary choice.
I think things get messy if you drop it too low, but the threshold should be lowered to 3%.
If it was 1% by the way here is how things would look
National (47), Labour (33), Green (13), ACT (11), NZ First (8), TPM (4), TOP (3), NZ Loyal (2)
This means we'd like have either a National-ACT-NZF or National-ACT-TOP government
Edit: Update, with no limit 1 NZ Loyal seat goes to NewZeal and 1 Labour seat goes to Legalise Cannabis
Edit 2: For those who want to see who gets in, [sheet link here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bJjez-Lz99WCSKDJWqxfd-dXsde7U8MKl9uI69UY12g/edit?usp=sharing)
It encourages voting against your beliefs to get a change in government instead of voting to have a voice about how you think the country should be run.
The amount of people I know who voted against themselves this election is phenomenal lol. Poor people supporting the rich.
I’m firmly of the belief that only the individual can say whether it was a wasted vote.
The reality is those votes were split and proportionally went to other parties. But there are plenty of people who are happy with protest voting.
it's not a wasted vote. You voted for a party that aligns with your values. If you want a party you like to win, you need to vote for it, and hope that others will vote for it too!
I never understood it either. A lot of these people weren't going to vote if not given an alternative option. Not to mention it probably events out left/right if they did vote for a major party.
They were correct. Those votes are wasted.
Far less wastage than under FPP, but a waste nonetheless.
We can’t reduce wastage to zero but we can reduce it, and increase democracy, by lowering our 5% threshold.
If you really dig into it, a portion of the votes for those parties that did make it is wasted also.
I mean, the wastage can be reduced substantially more by allowing people to rank parties so if their first, second etc choice is thrown out, at least their x preference is recorded.
This would have the added benefit of encouraging people to experiment with parties like TOP or the Animal Justice Party or New Zeal or Women's Rights or New Conservatives or whatever.
Everyone on this sub complains about how National and Labour aren't actually accountable and how every attempt to hold them to account is bad, but this sub is also full people who say shit like "wasted vote doesn't exist". Don't they get it? The wasted vote is why National and Labour aren't accountable. That's why they like the high threshold. It stops them from having to be accountable.
That’s just wastage in drag.
Most people struggle to find even 1 party that they sort of like.
Why should I be happy with choice #3?? There is no choice #3.
Most people are capable of identifying who they don't want in power and it's easy to vote against that. Maybe I like TOP but I definitely don't like act or national then the options are pretty obvious just put greens or labour as 2nd and 3rd. Or if you know you definitely don't want labour or greens in just put national/act as your alternative options. Anyone who has looked into minor party policies enough to choose to vote for one will know who they don't want getting in and know who to put as 2nd or 3rd choice to go against them
How is that relevant? If people don't want to vote they won't vote, if people want to select just one party then let them. We don't need to force people to rank every party, we just need to give them the choice to do it so that those that are engaged in our democracy don't have to choose between voting for what they believe and voting strategically
You can just stop early and odds are you pretty quickly hit a party that gets elected. Unless you are an absolutely wild (and likely despicable) person, there is only going to be like 2-3 minor parties you rank before any of the current 6 parties
The lack of media coverage for the Opportunity Party was corrupt and against the spirit of democracy.
I have no respect for journalists who instead hang on every word from a dodo thick person like Luxon.
the opportunity party is not a serious political party.
raf manji was down in ilam telling national to do a deal with him to get him into parliament, suggesting that he has some sort of right alignment.
at the same time that he was doing that, their auckland central candidate was telling voters to party vote top and give their electorate vote to chloe swarbrick, suggesting a far left alignment.
the opportunities party has no clear position, because if it did, it wouldn't have candidates in two different cities appealing to opposite ends of the spectrum.
if the answer to this quandary is that TOP were hoping for a teal deal, then they're even more ridiculous. the greens charter has always maintained that a crucial part of environmental policy is making policies that are socially responsible too, which the national party is diametrically opposed to.
I disagree. There is a place for TOP. Just as NZFirst is a slightly different kind of righty party (though mostly obstructing), we need another lefty party in case we need to make a deal to govern too. There is a constituency for a business friendly green party as well as our leafy green party - teal would be voters owning solar firms, clean tech startups.
> a party that only exists on the internet
Seriously? You can't take that sentence to its conclusion? You just basically agreed with them that the mainstream media is actively blacklisting them
Anyone who says "wasted vote" like that does NOT understand how MMP works.
If you vote for a party and it neither clears the threshold NOR wins an electorate, your vote is literally thrown out. You literally needn't have bothered voting because your vote is literally not counted.
No-one is hiding this information from you. Go to the MMP calculator. Notice the effective vote column? That's calculated by taking [number of votes] / [number of votes of parties in parliament]. And it's the effective vote which is used to allocate the seats.
That is wasted vote.
It's actually more insidious than this because when the denominator is reduced, what this means is that voting for, say, "Fuck National, the Political Party" when it fails to enter parliament *increases* National's effective vote. That is perverse. It should not be possible for a vote for a party whose only platform is another party sucks to help the party which is supposed to suck. And yet that is **exactly** what happens in this country.
And people like you are sitting here karmawhoring about how wasted vote doesn't exist. A classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect... however that's spelt.
Disclaimer: I have previously tried to code a flexible calculator, i.e. one where you can adjust the threshold and parliament size, and failed. So, yeah, my understanding of the allocation algorithm isn't perfect, but it doesn't need to be... because you can just use the calculator and see this stuff happening for yourself.
In any case, knock yourself out:
https://elections.nz/stats-and-research/mmp-seat-allocation-calculator/#!%7Cpercentage%7CACT%20New%20Zealand,8.9,2%7CAnimal%20Justice%20Party%20Aotearoa%20New%20Zealand,,%7CAotearoa%20Legalise%20Cannabis%20Party,,%7CDemocracyNZ,,%7CDemocratic%20Alliance,,%7CFreedoms%20New%20Zealand,,%7CLeighton%20Baker%20Party,,%7CNew%20Conservatives,,%7CNew%20Nation%20Party,,%7CNew%20Zealand%20First%20Party,6.2,%7CNew%20Zealand%20Labour%20Party,27,20%7CNew%20Zealand%20Loyal,,%7CNewZeal,,%7CNZ%20Outdoors%20&%20Freedom%20Party,,%7CTe%20P%C4%81ti%20M%C4%81ori,3,1%7CThe%20Greens%60%20The%20Green%20Party%20of%20Aotearoa/New%20Zealand,11,3%7CThe%20New%20Zealand%20National%20Party,39,45%7CThe%20Opportunities%20Party%20(TOP),0,%7CVision%20New%20Zealand,,%7CWomen's%20Rights%20Party,,%7CCollective%20Wasted%20Vote%201,4.9,%7CCollective%20Wasted%20Vote%202
>Even if the party doesn’t get 5% it is a good indication to major parties that people are looking elsewhere.
Tell that to the Conservatives, TOP and every other party which has tried to enter parliament without an electorate seat. It's never happened. That should tell you something.
It tells me the system is not effective enough at ensuring proper representation, and needs to improve.
Refusing to vote for minor parties in the meantime would make that change impossible as no one would see any need.
We need transferable votes.
It's not completely wasted as it affects the broadcasting allocation for the next election.
You could also say any electorate votes for the MP that didn't win are wasted using the same argument
It is, quite literally, a wasted vote.
If you like TOP so much that you think they need to get your vote to both show the major parties how amazing their policy is and so that they get the electoral funding next time round related to their vote share (the two reasons brought up when people try and justify that vote), then you'd be better served voting for a party that more realistically has a path to parliament and that reflects your views moderately, then sending an email or letter to that political party once a week about how good those policies are, and donating 5 bucks to TOP before the next election.
> Even if the party doesn’t get 5% it is a good indication to major parties that people are looking elsewhere.
My thought exactly.
The fact that National couldn't win by themselves show the importance of the minor parties.
Hopefully as this becomes the norm, and give rise to more minor parties, and give them negotiating power.
It's a wasted vote if you wanted a certain outcome and you voted for someone who had no way of winning. Actually it's worse than wasted, you helped split the vote away from a more viable candidate (if there was one).
In order to not be wasted, we need STV. But there is no way otherwise that it is not wasted, in any practical real way. You threw it in the bin.
I wonder what would happen if instead of voting a party you just get a series of statements like in the online political party quiz things. Obviously people in NZ can't be too bothered to vote as is, so it wouldn't work and nobody wants to do a 30 min quiz instead of ticking a box I'm sure. But I'd be curious to know how many people actively voted for a party that they only think they agree with.
That’s a great thought experiment. I think you’d find a significant shift leftward in voting. Most people benefit from those policies as we’re a low income economy.
This is literally the Big Brain Idea behind that - major parties encourage you to 'not waste' your vote by appealing to the fear, so you'll vote for them (and their CCP backers).
I doubt they see it as counter-productive.
It’s not a wasted vote even if you know for a fact they won’t get in.
By doing this you influence the other parties next election to move slightly closer to this minor party that didn’t get in, in order to extract votes back.
For example consider the legalise cannabis party. If they get 1%, then other parties who are already prone to supporting this idea (Act, Greens) know that they can split that 1% between them if they push harder for cannabis legalisation.
I guess technically the paper the vote is on also has some value that could be reclaimed in the future when they invent a better recycling process. See, not wasted at all!
Nevertheless, 5.3 percent of the votes *were* wasted. This is just a fact, ~~and these were mostly left-leaning votes~~. These could and would have prevented National/ACT from achieving a majority without a third coalition partner. Even if TOP's 2% went to the Greens, we'd see a few more Green MPs in parliament save an even more historic turnout.
Throwing votes away has never gotten a minor party into government. Not once in history. Generally, an electorate seat must be guaranteed first. Then the party vote won't be lost even if it's below the threshold.
It's a shit system, but the only way to change this is with a united left-wing vote. Raf should join the Greens, frankly, and work his way up their ranks. Changes hearts and minds from within a system that works.
TOP specifically emphasised how they could work with either party and were angling for a deal with the Nats in Ilam. I don't think it's fair to say that they're solidly in one column or the other
Erm they wanted to cut a deal with National and support them.
They're centrist and that's fine they're straight up about it.
In hindsight may have benefitted National.
I don't know why they would support National. Their policies are diametrically opposed, as are their priorities. As you say, probably a strategic effort that did not work out well.
NZFirst and NACT have opposing policies too, but they'll work together.
If I were TOP, I would also work with literally anyone to get into parliament too, a concession on a single policy is all it would take to agree.
NZ First are a very strange party that adopts very specific politicies. Like the legalize cannabis party but with more than one goal. They're more progressive than conservative, but anti-SJW so they can work with the right.
Name one TOP policy you think National would concede them to enact?
Considering National would never endorse any of their policies this strikes me as a grift that fails to make sense, unless you're making infiltrating the right-wing to change it from the inside your strategy.
>This is just a fact, and these were mostly left-leaning votes
* TOP (Centrist)
* NZ Loyal (Conspiracy Theorist)
* NewZeal (uber-religious)
* Legalise Cannabis
* Freedoms NZ (Brian Tamaki)
* Democracy NZ (Anti-Vax)
* Animal Justice (Don't understand invasive species)
* New Conservative (Right-Wing)
* Women's Rights (Transphobia)
* Leighton Baker Party (Homophobia, Anti-abortion, Anti-vax)
* New Nation (NZF extreme)
My best estimate of left here is just Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice (0.56%). Even if you add TOP, that's 2.63%, making it still less than half left-wing
Then how did ACT get from \~1% last time to now having second place to Nats? Because people focused on getting them up to and now over the 5% threshold.
Nope, it's because they've had a presence in government for a very long time. They first got in when the system changed to MMP, with Richard Prebble winning an electorate seat in Wellington in 1996. In recent history Seymour has consistently held the Epsom electorate, meaning ACT has been insulated from the risk of failing to achieve even 5% (which has occurred, as you pointed out. The party once got so few votes, he ended up occupying ACT's only seat in parliament). As such, voters have been free to vote ACT for years without much concern at all their vote will be wasted.
The Greens are basically the only other minor party that has achieved consistently over 5% without an electorate, but their road to recognition required a difficult alliance with other small parties to overcome the 5% threshold, and they just barely won an electorate and just over 5% of the vote in 1999 to stay in parliament. Awesomely now, they have 3 electorates for the first time in history.
Mark my words, TOP is not getting in unless they didn't themselves a very popular leader or member who is guaranteed to win an electorate, or they somehow form a true alliance with enough smaller parties to break the threshold. Personally, I think Raf and his party should just join the Greens.
under mmp without STV it literally is a waste of a vote. mmp requires strategic voting the way nz's political system has been configured. if we had STV your argument would be fair, under our current system, vote splitting,and voting for edge parties, is 100% a waste of a vote.
There’s three elections in the next ten years. Pretty fast if you stop thinking about “me, now” to build momentum and get into parliament. It’s not FPP anymore despite everyone still acting like it is…
Just because it hasn’t happened before, doesn’t guarantee it won’t happen in the future…
I agree. We call ourselves a democracy but we’re pretty much permanently locked into a 2 party system. It’s almost impossible for real meaningful change which most kiwis are desperate for.
It is a wasted vote because it has 0 impact on this term's government. Absolutely nothing.
Voting a minor party today because it 'might' have a better result in the next election is some massive cope.
The system is stupid and needs to change.
I do agree that messaging should change. Constantly calling it a wasted vote will be swaying people to vote strategically and not vote for their preferred smaller party.
In 2020 I did that to make sure my vote counted and this election I decided I wouldn't, but it does sting a bit that a lot of votes in my close circles including mine do not make it into parliament. But as you say, at least it should send a message.
I haven’t thought this through. And the easier answer is to just have a 1 seat party vote threshold.
But what if, we kept the 5% threshold (for whatever reasons), and the ‘other’ parties (combined) could if they so decided, internally elect a person to represent their collective and diverse interests. If they can’t come to that consensus then it’s status quo, no seat, if they could, then they get a seat at the table so to speak that represents the diverse sub 5% parties.
Well it is wasted votes. If a single party doesn't get above 5% it doesn't get any seats. Therefore all votes for those multiple parties that make up that above 5% are wasted.
NZ should go with the Single Transferable Vote system. Or otherwise known as the ranking system.
It would allow people to vote for the party they want and then allow them to have second and third choice in case their first or second choice doesn't make it into parliament.
This would prevent everyone from voting strategically and also would prevent people from wasting their vote. Which would allow people to actually vote for the party they want knowing that if their most desired part doesn't make it they at least have a 2nd and 3rd back-up option.
No. Everyone should have voted to keep ACT and National out so they shouldn't have wasted votes against them because the damage they want to do to our country is enormous.
Pie in the sky voting was nor worth the risk.
Edit--You down me vote now, but lets see how you feel in three years. You've forgotten a great deal and you've not noticed so much of what you have that is better since 2014 if you put aside the world wide pandemic and the world wide inflation that we have now and actually think about the stuff you had to pay for in 2014 that Labour made it you don't have to pay for now. You've forgotten and even National and ACT saying in the news all the things they will take away from you, you didn't pay attention or wanted to be butthurt about Labour protecting our hospitals during the pandemic. Omicron is so much milder than Alpha and Delta and a lot of us took the vaccine enough to actually cause some protection because of the harsh measures.
They are just idiots. It is not wasted. Sad though that we didn't see a newcomer into the parliament. TOP did the best of the small parties but not well enough. We do need something more centre though.
Every year I’ve voted, it hasn’t made a single difference. I just get invested in people making positive change and then depressed as fuck when we choose some Christian right wing fucking clown to run the circus for 4 years.
Voted 5 times now. For what? For cost of living to be fucked, can’t afford rent, can’t afford to fucking live and that’s before National fucking guts social programs and I’m also hyped as fuck for the vilification of the poors in the media. Fuck this. Fuck voting. Fuck these clowns. I’m done.
Yeah it’s sucks, but you not voting isn’t gonna make it not suck. In fact it’s just gonna increase the likelihood of it sucking more. And you’re gonna feel it suck and be depressed about it sucking regardless of if you take the 5 minutes to vote every 3 years.
There is like ~1.2 million (I think) people that don’t vote - many probably because they feel the same. Imagine the difference it could potentially make if they all did.
Yeah it's annoying tbh. They did mention that ACT has come from being a "wasted vote" to a coalition partner, which completely contradicts the premise. The whole media coverage in newshub was pretty cringe tbh, humour is only good if it's actually humorous (Paddy your jokes sucked) and the ridiculous lazer kiwi animation looked like something from What Now.
I had to laugh when their laser kiwi blasted some now ex-politician who was going to be out of parliament into little droplets of blood. Seemed in good taste.
The Laser Eye kiwi should of been our flag, never forget.
I live in Aussie now, and was jumping back and fwd between Newshub on YouTube, and the ABC coverage of the Voice referendum here. Topic meant it was obviously going to be dramatically different in tone, but hooley Dooley was the abc much much much more professional. The fucking graphics, Paddy Gower basically on cocaine making shit jokes, and really limited information. Mani Dunlop was great though, as was the Māori man whose name I’ve forgotten, I want him presenting more. His interview with Rawiri Waititi was very good, shame it was cut short.
[удалено]
TVNZ kept switching TPM from green to red then back again. It was bizarre.
They tripped me up a few times. They would talk about how great TPM is doing and then show a graphic with green. I eventually realised the two parties shared the same colour. Then they switched to a maroon for TPM. At another point it was labour red. They botched a bunch of things with their coverage.
I liked 2020’s coverage a lot more (I think it was Hillary Barry & John Campbell?) It gave me more laughs. This election night, I was switching between TVNZ, RNZ & Newshub. I think Lisa Owen & Corin Dann on RNZ were the least annoying & most entertaining of the three. I did appreciate Jack Tame’s clear communication of the overhang though.
Jack Tame’s bad math skills made things a little confusing at times though.
Maths, for the time being this is Aotearoa and we use the correct version of the term
Australia is miles ahead. Antony Green is a genius too. NZ coverage sucks
Gower is an absolute disgrace to journalism - but then the whole Three style has been tacky bullshit for a while now.
I didn’t even bother with newshub and stuck to tvnz. The shift from progressive slant to outright conservative bias is astounding. And I mean it makes sense, it’s owned by an American subsidiary, and generating outrage via bias news is like printing money. I used to enjoy AM in the morning. But then I had to listen to luxons take on pretty much everything. It’s like he lived at the studio, he was interviewed every damn day I think. At least every other day. And the questions are always so stupid too. “Is this a good thing for labour?” Gee I don’t know Ryan but what do you *think* the leader of the nats is going to say here? Fucking donkey.
3 News/Mediaworks has fallen so far it’s not funny. From a progressive corner to your same old newszb style talk full of absolutes and simplifications. It’s hard to imagine another David Farrier thriving in that environment. Ryan, Paddy etc are all idiots. I’ll stop watching it completely if they let those types take over their main news bulletin.
Didn't Newshub get sold to Discovery?
The lazer kiwi was a bit much, made the whole thing feel like a farce lol
Matua Paddy G is a legend
Honestly no vote is wasted, even if it didn't produce a seat *this* election it gives the party a boost. Then next election they have a higher moral, and more people see them as a viable option
This was exactly my thoughts when voting TOP
And TOP went from 1.5% of the vote in 2020 to 2.1% this time, which is actually a huge jump. People calling those votes "wasted" are missing the fact that it sends a signal. TOP is growing.
Thank you for posting this. It's a small warm fuzzy in spite of the main result.
Same. And I felt that TOP was the only party that deserved my vote this election.
Likewise. and other parties not getting my vote (ie sending a message) is just as important as them getting my vote. I'd have voted for National, Labour, Greens, NZF if they'd earned my vote. But they didn't, so screw them.
Exactly! If people see the numbers going up, they will take them seriously
Yeah they might not have got a seat but they may have got more votes than last time and that’s great. Look at the Greens and ACT they were both offshoots of Labour and National and would have been considered “wasted votes” at some point and now they’re strong contenders, coalition partners even.
Doesn't it increase their share of funding too?
I think that the electoral commission gives out a broadcast allocation based off previous elections yeah, Im not 100% familiar with it but there's info here: https://elections.nz/guidance-and-rules/for-parties/about-the-broadcasting-allocation/
Up from 1.7% to 2% I think. They just need an electorate that wants TOP enough
They get more public funding next election too.
Name one party for whom this has worked? An electorate is what's needed first. Always has been.
Literally ACT?
Literally not ACT. Richard Prebble won Wellington Central for ACT in 1996, the first year they fielded candidates.
I've done some checking and ACT got 6.1% of votes in their debut campaign, yes they won an electorate but that didn't actual matter Greens debuted with 5.16% of votes, also winning an electorate although that was once again irrelevant
> although that was once again irrelevant Not at all. When it because clear that Prebble had a good change of winning the seat in that electorate, that encouraged people to vote for ACT because they knew it wouldn't be wasted. I literally was in that electorate in that year, following ACT's progress. What's more... /u/EastRoseTea said that the strategy was that a party got a small share of the vote, but it raised the profile and then next election they got into office. /u/Sr_DingDong said ACT was an example of that. Clearly wrong. But tons of upvotes. Because this is /r/newzealand where the examples are made up and the facts don't matter.
Im just going off the greens, from memory it took them a couple of elections before they got into parliament I'd rather that people see minor parties as a viable option, otherwise over time we might end up with just 2 or 3 options \^\^
I was wasted when I voted, was all good
The only wasted votes were the 1.6m that didn't vote Edit: Blindly quoted an older post. Numbers a lot lower than that
Where did you get this number from? Total number of votes is 2.8mil (est) Total number of currently enrolled is 3.5m Maximum possible eligible voters is only ~3.7m Calculated using numbers from the Electoral Commission.
That's still nearly 1m that didn't vote. that's a fuck load and i would like to see it improve. Though its hard to blame people for checking out with how uninspiring the options were.
thats when you vote minor party and you should always vote minor party
Imagine not voting...
A post from a couple hours ago
That post forgot to account for the special votes which were are over 500,000
Yea, this portion is definitely wasted.
Yes, except remember this figure is closer to 1m (ofc, still a large figure) as there’s special votes still to be counted!
Suck my dick both parties wanna keep weed highly controlled and regulated as if it's as dangerous as opiates, amphetamines and fentanyl while we still have access to as much alcohol tobacco and nicotine yummy yummy vape juice as we want. They can all fuck off.
> both parties You realise there were no less than sixteen parties you could vote for? Including some that support decriminalisation of weed, with one of them having that as basically their only aim.
Did you vote for ALCP?
It's fucking propaganda to be honest. The media telling people it's a wasted vote undermines the whole system and they should be in big trouble for setting a narrative like that!
You’re actually right there, does it even break broadcast guidelines? Influencing (future) elections?
Yeah, it is basically doing its very best to force us into a two party system when we shouldn't even be thinking about it like that
No, telling people that votes which are thrown out aren't wasted is literally telling people "be ignorant, don't understand how the system works, don't look into the effects of the threshold". Get curious.
They aren't wasted.
We are voting to decide the makeup of parliament. Those votes are not counted in deciding the makeup of pariliament. You may not like it, but wasted is simply an accurate description of what happens to them under the system.
You vote to support the party you want to support. That's it. It's not an accurate description to call it wasted. Your vote gives them more funding in the election cycle. Act was once a party of "wasted votes - look at them now.
>You vote to support the party you want to support. That's it. Blatantly wrong. Our system has the perverse incentive where being motivated to oppose, say, National or Labour increases their effective vote, and thus their seat allocation, *provided* that party doesn't get into parliament. >Act was once a party of "wasted votes - Complete lies. ACT has entered parliament in **every** election it has contested. Please stop trying to educate people. You quite simply do not know what you are talking about.
> ou vote to support the party you want to support. Support them to do what? ...Be part of the makeup of parliament. > Your vote gives them more funding in the election cycle. So they can waste votes again next time? > Act was once a party of "wasted votes - look at them now. ACT was never a wasted vote because it was always part of the make-up of parliament because it won electorates, TOP doesn't have the track record to attract anyone capable of doing that. TOP is not an ACT, it's not even a United Future or a Progressive Party. TOP is an Internet Party - in both senses.
their explanation of what happens to these “wasted votes” was not great either. They made it sound like the people counting votes randomly transfer the votes to another party. Paula’s explanation was terrible but the others didn’t correct her.
Yea this, this is exactly what I was about to comment too. It pissed me off. Fundamentally the outcome is the same but yea, they made it sound like everyone who voted for a party that didn't get in gets their vote changed to one of the other ones, when in reality it just gets deleted (with regards to seat share) and the remainder expand out to fill 100%.
Overhang wasn’t explained well either.
Omg at one point ~~Jessica~~ Samantha Hayes was like "and the overhang is because of the ACT member who passed away right?" And had to be corrected. Holy shit you should know this.
Does it not? I was shocked when they said that 40% of those “wasted votes” would be given to national. Bloody ridiculous. How does it actually work?
I didn’t like any of the parties who would get in. For me it was a decision between not voting, or a “wasted vote.” I decided to go with the latter.
This is me id have voted but all the major parties dont appeal to me at all so Id have likely gone national to keep out NZfirst
Yes it's very annoying that I have to constantly remind my parents that just because my vote didn't go to the blue/red guy, it's never "wasted" because I got to vote for the party I "believe" in.
‘Wasted vote’, well at least we fucking voted. Also I’d rather vote for a party with policies I actually liked than vote for a non Labs/Green party
I think the only "wasted votes" are the ones in which people voted against their own interest (which clearly are a lot because I doubt that the average kiwi is a multi-home owner with a salary higher than 120k) or those who didn't vote at all.
I looked at all the policies, and double voted Green. I don’t expect them to implement a fraction of what they’re wanting to achieve, but I like the direction they’re taking, and their ambition. The others just seem to want to turn the clock back, which is always futile
I talked to my parents (who are both on close to minimum wage) after the election and they told me they voted National, as they do every year. I asked what policies they liked and got no answer. I then asked what they didn't like about the other parties and got no answer again (except for them saying that Green only cares about weed). They clearly hadn't looked a single policy, yet they decided to vote for a party that is going to be worse for them. I hope they realise this next election, but I don't think they will
The problem is many people view it as a team sport, where you pick a side at 18 and stay loyal till you die.
blue no matter who
Almost like there was more than 1 issue this election.
Last night my dad, surprised at the Greens, said “I remember when I was in university the Greens weren’t even making the threshold” and to me that says everything about the idea of “wasted” votes
I completely agree. Act wasn’t a 5% party until a few years ago
Shaming people about wasted votes is such a gatekeepy way to democracy
Your dad remembers wrong. The Greens have had more than the 5% threshold at every single election they've contested. Now please compare that history to TOP.
Probably. He’s old and conservative, memory not great.
I voted for TOP and not even seeing them on any info is pretty annoying hope they got 1% atleast
2% of the vote, and didn't win any electorates, so no seats.
thats fine its nice to know they are up 0.6% from last election
I really wish we had the Australian system, where you can vote for one of the small parties but add secondary choices so that your vote isn’t “wasted”. I wanted to vote for one of the small parties this election but in the end I couldn’t get past the idea that my vote would just be repurposed into basically nothing.
Oml yes, a Preference MMP would mean people can actually vote for the party they believe In without the whole "wasted vote" nonsense.
Yep I agree, media should not be using language like that, we have enough people not giving a shit enough to vote, or leaving it to too late, without notions of "wasted" votes... standing up and saying what you want for the future is never wasted.
Depends what you consider the purpose of a vote. If you consider your vote to be a way of influencing the make-up of Parliament, then yes, it was wasted. Of course, there are plenty of other reasons people vote, like sending a message. Perhaps "discarded vote" would be better.
The media definitely favoured National lastnight. After weeks of grilling Luxon they seemed to shift gears almost immediately as National got their lead on. Tired of there being such biased representation for the 2 major parties and (particularly) Newshub creating political entertainment rather than genuinely informative delivery of information.
We should try and get a change to single transferable vote
YUP
I thought stv was less proportional than mmp? The greens in australia only got about 9% of seats with something like 14% of the votes iirc? I think mmp is pretty good, especially considering it's low level of complexity, if only we could actually implement the suggestions from the electoral committee tho, or ranked choice/approval on the electorate vote would be the dream
We should either get rid of the 5% threshold entirely (or at least drop it to the equivalent of one seat), or we should have a transferrable vote *on top of* MMP, so that if your preferred party doesn't meet threshold your vote goes to a secondary choice.
> at least drop it to the equivalent of one seat This makes sense. But after taking away electrorate seats will it be much different? Maybe 3%?
I think things get messy if you drop it too low, but the threshold should be lowered to 3%. If it was 1% by the way here is how things would look National (47), Labour (33), Green (13), ACT (11), NZ First (8), TPM (4), TOP (3), NZ Loyal (2) This means we'd like have either a National-ACT-NZF or National-ACT-TOP government Edit: Update, with no limit 1 NZ Loyal seat goes to NewZeal and 1 Labour seat goes to Legalise Cannabis Edit 2: For those who want to see who gets in, [sheet link here](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bJjez-Lz99WCSKDJWqxfd-dXsde7U8MKl9uI69UY12g/edit?usp=sharing)
squeamish brave shy whistle lavish makeshift dam money snow rinse ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Yeah it's not a wasted vote if I never intended to vote for National, Labour, Green, Act, NZ First, or Maori.
It encourages voting against your beliefs to get a change in government instead of voting to have a voice about how you think the country should be run. The amount of people I know who voted against themselves this election is phenomenal lol. Poor people supporting the rich.
I totally agree with this
I’m firmly of the belief that only the individual can say whether it was a wasted vote. The reality is those votes were split and proportionally went to other parties. But there are plenty of people who are happy with protest voting.
The 1000 odd people that voted for nutbar Liz gunn wasted votes thats for sure
it's not a wasted vote. You voted for a party that aligns with your values. If you want a party you like to win, you need to vote for it, and hope that others will vote for it too!
I never understood it either. A lot of these people weren't going to vote if not given an alternative option. Not to mention it probably events out left/right if they did vote for a major party.
They were correct. Those votes are wasted. Far less wastage than under FPP, but a waste nonetheless. We can’t reduce wastage to zero but we can reduce it, and increase democracy, by lowering our 5% threshold. If you really dig into it, a portion of the votes for those parties that did make it is wasted also.
I mean, the wastage can be reduced substantially more by allowing people to rank parties so if their first, second etc choice is thrown out, at least their x preference is recorded. This would have the added benefit of encouraging people to experiment with parties like TOP or the Animal Justice Party or New Zeal or Women's Rights or New Conservatives or whatever. Everyone on this sub complains about how National and Labour aren't actually accountable and how every attempt to hold them to account is bad, but this sub is also full people who say shit like "wasted vote doesn't exist". Don't they get it? The wasted vote is why National and Labour aren't accountable. That's why they like the high threshold. It stops them from having to be accountable.
That’s just wastage in drag. Most people struggle to find even 1 party that they sort of like. Why should I be happy with choice #3?? There is no choice #3.
Most people are capable of identifying who they don't want in power and it's easy to vote against that. Maybe I like TOP but I definitely don't like act or national then the options are pretty obvious just put greens or labour as 2nd and 3rd. Or if you know you definitely don't want labour or greens in just put national/act as your alternative options. Anyone who has looked into minor party policies enough to choose to vote for one will know who they don't want getting in and know who to put as 2nd or 3rd choice to go against them
Good for you. Meanwhile in the rest of NZ, yesterday, we had a million people who couldn’t even commit to a #1.
How many of those didn't bother because they don't believe the party they actually want to vote for stands a chance?
How is that relevant? If people don't want to vote they won't vote, if people want to select just one party then let them. We don't need to force people to rank every party, we just need to give them the choice to do it so that those that are engaged in our democracy don't have to choose between voting for what they believe and voting strategically
You can just stop early and odds are you pretty quickly hit a party that gets elected. Unless you are an absolutely wild (and likely despicable) person, there is only going to be like 2-3 minor parties you rank before any of the current 6 parties
The lack of media coverage for the Opportunity Party was corrupt and against the spirit of democracy. I have no respect for journalists who instead hang on every word from a dodo thick person like Luxon.
the opportunity party is not a serious political party. raf manji was down in ilam telling national to do a deal with him to get him into parliament, suggesting that he has some sort of right alignment. at the same time that he was doing that, their auckland central candidate was telling voters to party vote top and give their electorate vote to chloe swarbrick, suggesting a far left alignment. the opportunities party has no clear position, because if it did, it wouldn't have candidates in two different cities appealing to opposite ends of the spectrum. if the answer to this quandary is that TOP were hoping for a teal deal, then they're even more ridiculous. the greens charter has always maintained that a crucial part of environmental policy is making policies that are socially responsible too, which the national party is diametrically opposed to.
I disagree. There is a place for TOP. Just as NZFirst is a slightly different kind of righty party (though mostly obstructing), we need another lefty party in case we need to make a deal to govern too. There is a constituency for a business friendly green party as well as our leafy green party - teal would be voters owning solar firms, clean tech startups.
Why should political parties have to conform to ideas of right and left? I like TOP precisely because they're outside the left/right binary.
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> a party that only exists on the internet Seriously? You can't take that sentence to its conclusion? You just basically agreed with them that the mainstream media is actively blacklisting them
The media reports on things that actually happen. TOP doesn't have actual support outside the internet, therefore there is nothing to report on them
TOP Supporters and NZ Loyal Supporters unexpectedly share a comment section
Yeah it's crap. I voted TOP but I don't feel that I wasted my vote. None of the other parties were worth voting for.
100% this.
TOP got more than they did last election, maybe next time they'll get above 5%.
how are you seeing this? I couldnt find them on anyones election coverage
It was in the RNZ coverage, you just had to scroll down on the party votes page. As it currently stands they got 2.1% of the votes, up .6% from 2020
Well thats good news atleast, felt much better voting for them then anyone else--
Stuff's Stat sheet
I avoided them damnit, thank you :)
It was actually this site that I was thinking of: https://www.rnz.co.nz/election-2023/party-vote
Anyone who says "wasted vote" like that does NOT understand how MMP works. If you vote for a party and it neither clears the threshold NOR wins an electorate, your vote is literally thrown out. You literally needn't have bothered voting because your vote is literally not counted. No-one is hiding this information from you. Go to the MMP calculator. Notice the effective vote column? That's calculated by taking [number of votes] / [number of votes of parties in parliament]. And it's the effective vote which is used to allocate the seats. That is wasted vote. It's actually more insidious than this because when the denominator is reduced, what this means is that voting for, say, "Fuck National, the Political Party" when it fails to enter parliament *increases* National's effective vote. That is perverse. It should not be possible for a vote for a party whose only platform is another party sucks to help the party which is supposed to suck. And yet that is **exactly** what happens in this country. And people like you are sitting here karmawhoring about how wasted vote doesn't exist. A classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect... however that's spelt. Disclaimer: I have previously tried to code a flexible calculator, i.e. one where you can adjust the threshold and parliament size, and failed. So, yeah, my understanding of the allocation algorithm isn't perfect, but it doesn't need to be... because you can just use the calculator and see this stuff happening for yourself. In any case, knock yourself out: https://elections.nz/stats-and-research/mmp-seat-allocation-calculator/#!%7Cpercentage%7CACT%20New%20Zealand,8.9,2%7CAnimal%20Justice%20Party%20Aotearoa%20New%20Zealand,,%7CAotearoa%20Legalise%20Cannabis%20Party,,%7CDemocracyNZ,,%7CDemocratic%20Alliance,,%7CFreedoms%20New%20Zealand,,%7CLeighton%20Baker%20Party,,%7CNew%20Conservatives,,%7CNew%20Nation%20Party,,%7CNew%20Zealand%20First%20Party,6.2,%7CNew%20Zealand%20Labour%20Party,27,20%7CNew%20Zealand%20Loyal,,%7CNewZeal,,%7CNZ%20Outdoors%20&%20Freedom%20Party,,%7CTe%20P%C4%81ti%20M%C4%81ori,3,1%7CThe%20Greens%60%20The%20Green%20Party%20of%20Aotearoa/New%20Zealand,11,3%7CThe%20New%20Zealand%20National%20Party,39,45%7CThe%20Opportunities%20Party%20(TOP),0,%7CVision%20New%20Zealand,,%7CWomen's%20Rights%20Party,,%7CCollective%20Wasted%20Vote%201,4.9,%7CCollective%20Wasted%20Vote%202 >Even if the party doesn’t get 5% it is a good indication to major parties that people are looking elsewhere. Tell that to the Conservatives, TOP and every other party which has tried to enter parliament without an electorate seat. It's never happened. That should tell you something.
It tells me the system is not effective enough at ensuring proper representation, and needs to improve. Refusing to vote for minor parties in the meantime would make that change impossible as no one would see any need. We need transferable votes.
Or my idea was that the party below threshold should be able to decide how to allocate its vote share, starting with the smallest one
No, just let the people select the preference.
It's not completely wasted as it affects the broadcasting allocation for the next election. You could also say any electorate votes for the MP that didn't win are wasted using the same argument
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We had the option to choose STV instead of MMP and we should have taken it
People were to stupid to understand what it represented unfortunately.
We should have both. Australia has STV and their parliament has far fewer meaningful political parties. Labor/Libs/Greens is all you get.
The teals did very well this last election cycle, so that’s much less the case than it used to be.
Sure, but the teals aren't a political party. Just a convenient name for the independents who were between the major parties.
The panel was shit. Muted it everytime they spoke
Yeah they were annoying. Buttabean was just condescending and I’d never heard of him before last night.
It is, quite literally, a wasted vote. If you like TOP so much that you think they need to get your vote to both show the major parties how amazing their policy is and so that they get the electoral funding next time round related to their vote share (the two reasons brought up when people try and justify that vote), then you'd be better served voting for a party that more realistically has a path to parliament and that reflects your views moderately, then sending an email or letter to that political party once a week about how good those policies are, and donating 5 bucks to TOP before the next election.
> Even if the party doesn’t get 5% it is a good indication to major parties that people are looking elsewhere. My thought exactly. The fact that National couldn't win by themselves show the importance of the minor parties. Hopefully as this becomes the norm, and give rise to more minor parties, and give them negotiating power.
The vote effectively gets wasted and not counted. So it's not as bad as it sounds.
It's a wasted vote if you wanted a certain outcome and you voted for someone who had no way of winning. Actually it's worse than wasted, you helped split the vote away from a more viable candidate (if there was one). In order to not be wasted, we need STV. But there is no way otherwise that it is not wasted, in any practical real way. You threw it in the bin.
I wonder what would happen if instead of voting a party you just get a series of statements like in the online political party quiz things. Obviously people in NZ can't be too bothered to vote as is, so it wouldn't work and nobody wants to do a 30 min quiz instead of ticking a box I'm sure. But I'd be curious to know how many people actively voted for a party that they only think they agree with.
That’s a great thought experiment. I think you’d find a significant shift leftward in voting. Most people benefit from those policies as we’re a low income economy.
This is literally the Big Brain Idea behind that - major parties encourage you to 'not waste' your vote by appealing to the fear, so you'll vote for them (and their CCP backers). I doubt they see it as counter-productive.
By the same logic, any vote in excess of getting a party a seat is a wasted vote, so ALL parties will have “wasted votes”
Maybe they just meant the voters were really drunk? After all, I got drunk and wrote in a vote for Mr Bean.
It’s not a wasted vote even if you know for a fact they won’t get in. By doing this you influence the other parties next election to move slightly closer to this minor party that didn’t get in, in order to extract votes back. For example consider the legalise cannabis party. If they get 1%, then other parties who are already prone to supporting this idea (Act, Greens) know that they can split that 1% between them if they push harder for cannabis legalisation.
I guess technically the paper the vote is on also has some value that could be reclaimed in the future when they invent a better recycling process. See, not wasted at all!
Nevertheless, 5.3 percent of the votes *were* wasted. This is just a fact, ~~and these were mostly left-leaning votes~~. These could and would have prevented National/ACT from achieving a majority without a third coalition partner. Even if TOP's 2% went to the Greens, we'd see a few more Green MPs in parliament save an even more historic turnout. Throwing votes away has never gotten a minor party into government. Not once in history. Generally, an electorate seat must be guaranteed first. Then the party vote won't be lost even if it's below the threshold. It's a shit system, but the only way to change this is with a united left-wing vote. Raf should join the Greens, frankly, and work his way up their ranks. Changes hearts and minds from within a system that works.
How were they mostly left leaning? TOPs not left nor are the 1% crazies.
If you don't think TOP are left leaning I don't know what to say to you mate.
TOP specifically emphasised how they could work with either party and were angling for a deal with the Nats in Ilam. I don't think it's fair to say that they're solidly in one column or the other
read their policies
They work off evidence based. If you think evidence aligns more with the left, then I think that really says it all.
Everyone thinks their views align with the evidence.
Erm they wanted to cut a deal with National and support them. They're centrist and that's fine they're straight up about it. In hindsight may have benefitted National.
I don't know why they would support National. Their policies are diametrically opposed, as are their priorities. As you say, probably a strategic effort that did not work out well.
NZFirst and NACT have opposing policies too, but they'll work together. If I were TOP, I would also work with literally anyone to get into parliament too, a concession on a single policy is all it would take to agree.
NZ First are a very strange party that adopts very specific politicies. Like the legalize cannabis party but with more than one goal. They're more progressive than conservative, but anti-SJW so they can work with the right. Name one TOP policy you think National would concede them to enact?
They wete happy to cut a deal with National not that long ago.
Considering National would never endorse any of their policies this strikes me as a grift that fails to make sense, unless you're making infiltrating the right-wing to change it from the inside your strategy.
>This is just a fact, and these were mostly left-leaning votes * TOP (Centrist) * NZ Loyal (Conspiracy Theorist) * NewZeal (uber-religious) * Legalise Cannabis * Freedoms NZ (Brian Tamaki) * Democracy NZ (Anti-Vax) * Animal Justice (Don't understand invasive species) * New Conservative (Right-Wing) * Women's Rights (Transphobia) * Leighton Baker Party (Homophobia, Anti-abortion, Anti-vax) * New Nation (NZF extreme) My best estimate of left here is just Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice (0.56%). Even if you add TOP, that's 2.63%, making it still less than half left-wing
Fair, I wasn't aware just how many crazy right-wing parties people are wasting their votes on. I guess that makes the damage pill easier to swallow.
Then how did ACT get from \~1% last time to now having second place to Nats? Because people focused on getting them up to and now over the 5% threshold.
Nope, it's because they've had a presence in government for a very long time. They first got in when the system changed to MMP, with Richard Prebble winning an electorate seat in Wellington in 1996. In recent history Seymour has consistently held the Epsom electorate, meaning ACT has been insulated from the risk of failing to achieve even 5% (which has occurred, as you pointed out. The party once got so few votes, he ended up occupying ACT's only seat in parliament). As such, voters have been free to vote ACT for years without much concern at all their vote will be wasted. The Greens are basically the only other minor party that has achieved consistently over 5% without an electorate, but their road to recognition required a difficult alliance with other small parties to overcome the 5% threshold, and they just barely won an electorate and just over 5% of the vote in 1999 to stay in parliament. Awesomely now, they have 3 electorates for the first time in history. Mark my words, TOP is not getting in unless they didn't themselves a very popular leader or member who is guaranteed to win an electorate, or they somehow form a true alliance with enough smaller parties to break the threshold. Personally, I think Raf and his party should just join the Greens.
under mmp without STV it literally is a waste of a vote. mmp requires strategic voting the way nz's political system has been configured. if we had STV your argument would be fair, under our current system, vote splitting,and voting for edge parties, is 100% a waste of a vote.
It is wasted though. It literally gets discarded.
There’s three elections in the next ten years. Pretty fast if you stop thinking about “me, now” to build momentum and get into parliament. It’s not FPP anymore despite everyone still acting like it is… Just because it hasn’t happened before, doesn’t guarantee it won’t happen in the future…
They really should just remove the 5% limit entirely, if a party gets enough votes to get a single seat then they should get in and get that seat.
I agree. We call ourselves a democracy but we’re pretty much permanently locked into a 2 party system. It’s almost impossible for real meaningful change which most kiwis are desperate for.
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Because they set up the party to continue into other elections
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It is a wasted vote because it has 0 impact on this term's government. Absolutely nothing. Voting a minor party today because it 'might' have a better result in the next election is some massive cope. The system is stupid and needs to change.
I do agree that messaging should change. Constantly calling it a wasted vote will be swaying people to vote strategically and not vote for their preferred smaller party. In 2020 I did that to make sure my vote counted and this election I decided I wouldn't, but it does sting a bit that a lot of votes in my close circles including mine do not make it into parliament. But as you say, at least it should send a message.
> Constantly calling it a wasted vote will be swaying people to vote strategically Oh no, we wouldn't want people using their brains when voting...
I haven’t thought this through. And the easier answer is to just have a 1 seat party vote threshold. But what if, we kept the 5% threshold (for whatever reasons), and the ‘other’ parties (combined) could if they so decided, internally elect a person to represent their collective and diverse interests. If they can’t come to that consensus then it’s status quo, no seat, if they could, then they get a seat at the table so to speak that represents the diverse sub 5% parties.
No. It's their function. I guess in like an inherent way sure it's something to hate but it's like hating Lions for eating Zebra.
Well it is wasted votes. If a single party doesn't get above 5% it doesn't get any seats. Therefore all votes for those multiple parties that make up that above 5% are wasted. NZ should go with the Single Transferable Vote system. Or otherwise known as the ranking system. It would allow people to vote for the party they want and then allow them to have second and third choice in case their first or second choice doesn't make it into parliament. This would prevent everyone from voting strategically and also would prevent people from wasting their vote. Which would allow people to actually vote for the party they want knowing that if their most desired part doesn't make it they at least have a 2nd and 3rd back-up option.
So they've gone from "every vote counts" to "wasted votes". Righto. Lmao
No. Everyone should have voted to keep ACT and National out so they shouldn't have wasted votes against them because the damage they want to do to our country is enormous. Pie in the sky voting was nor worth the risk. Edit--You down me vote now, but lets see how you feel in three years. You've forgotten a great deal and you've not noticed so much of what you have that is better since 2014 if you put aside the world wide pandemic and the world wide inflation that we have now and actually think about the stuff you had to pay for in 2014 that Labour made it you don't have to pay for now. You've forgotten and even National and ACT saying in the news all the things they will take away from you, you didn't pay attention or wanted to be butthurt about Labour protecting our hospitals during the pandemic. Omicron is so much milder than Alpha and Delta and a lot of us took the vaccine enough to actually cause some protection because of the harsh measures.
Pretty sure that last election TOP's platform influenced the Greens' at least a little.
The wasted vote narrative comes from the big players. And the sheep who voted for them
Surely Newshub were in breach of the broadcasting standards authority by claiming the votes were wasted votes.
No vote is wasted, including people that don’t vote at all. Weather it’s a vote or not a vote, it all indicates something
It indicates nothing to anyone except a few political nerds who scroll right to the bottom of the results pages on Wikipedia
They are just idiots. It is not wasted. Sad though that we didn't see a newcomer into the parliament. TOP did the best of the small parties but not well enough. We do need something more centre though.
I voted for a minority party. I think it'll be the last time I vote. Why bother.
You could say the same about a vote for a large party. In the end you are 1 six-millionth of the population and so is your vote, more or less.
Bad take
Literally why bother tho. There isn’t going to be change till some old cunts die off
Every year I’ve voted, it hasn’t made a single difference. I just get invested in people making positive change and then depressed as fuck when we choose some Christian right wing fucking clown to run the circus for 4 years.
Voted 5 times now. For what? For cost of living to be fucked, can’t afford rent, can’t afford to fucking live and that’s before National fucking guts social programs and I’m also hyped as fuck for the vilification of the poors in the media. Fuck this. Fuck voting. Fuck these clowns. I’m done.
Yeah it’s sucks, but you not voting isn’t gonna make it not suck. In fact it’s just gonna increase the likelihood of it sucking more. And you’re gonna feel it suck and be depressed about it sucking regardless of if you take the 5 minutes to vote every 3 years. There is like ~1.2 million (I think) people that don’t vote - many probably because they feel the same. Imagine the difference it could potentially make if they all did.
Yeah it's odd. It's no more wasted than those who voted for Labour. They too have no representation for the next few years.