Electoral system of New Zealand
Encyclopedia
In 1994 New Zealand officially adopted mixed member proportional representation (MMP) as its electoral system for the House of Representatives
New Zealand House of Representatives
The New Zealand House of Representatives is the sole chamber of the legislature of New Zealand. The House and the Queen of New Zealand form the New Zealand Parliament....

 after many years of first-past-the-post voting. The first MMP election was held in 1996.

The term of the Parliament is set at three years from its first sitting. This means that an election must be held within approximately three years and two months of the previous election (for instance the 2002 election
New Zealand general election, 2002
The 2002 New Zealand general election was held on 27 July 2002 to determine the composition of the 47th New Zealand Parliament. It saw the reelection of Helen Clark's Labour Party government, as well as the worst-ever performance by the opposition National Party.Arguably the most controversial...

 was held on 27 July, the latest date the 2005 election
New Zealand general election, 2005
The 2005 New Zealand general election held on 17 September 2005 determined the composition of the 48th New Zealand Parliament. No party won a majority in the unicameral House of Representatives, but the Labour Party of Prime Minister Helen Clark secured two more seats than nearest rival, the...

 could be held on was 24 September). Elections are traditionally held between October and December, but snap elections in 1984 and 2002 caused some of the following elections to be held earlier.

MMP in New Zealand

The New Zealand electoral system is a two-tiered house. The lower tier determines the local representative. The upper, over-riding tier determines the proportionality of the House.

New Zealand voters have two votes. The main vote is the party vote. This vote determines the proportionality of the House, the upper tier of the electoral system. The other vote is the electorate vote for the lower tier. This determines the local representative within the House, and usually does not change the proportionality of the House. The electorate vote works as a plurality system, whereby whichever candidate gets the highest electorate vote in each electorate
New Zealand electorates
An electorate is a voting district for elections to the Parliament of New Zealand. In informal discussion, electorates are often called seats. The most formal description, electoral district, is rarely seen outside of electoral legislation. Before 1996, all Members of Parliament were directly...

 receives the seat. Since the two votes do not need to be for the same party, voters can punish or reward local candidates. In the 2005 election 20% of local representatives elected were of a party other than the party which got the largest party vote in that electorate.

Parties that receive 5% or more of the party vote are entitled to a share of the nominally 120 seats in the House of Representatives. Likewise parties that win one or more electorate seats – a rule that applied to four parties that polled below the 5% threshold in 2005, although only two of the four qualified for additional list seats. The seats are allocated using the Sainte-Laguë method
Sainte-Laguë method
The Sainte-Laguë method is one way of allocating seats approximately proportional to the number of votes of a party to a party list used in many voting systems. It is named after the French mathematician André Sainte-Laguë. The Sainte-Laguë method is quite similar to the D'Hondt method, but uses...

. If any independent candidates are elected, the number of seats to be allocated falls by the number of independent representatives, for example, 118 seats are allocated if two independents are elected.

Parties then fill their seats. Seats are allocated first to electorate MPs. Then parties fulfil their remaining quota from their party list. If a party has more electorate MPs than proportional seats, then it receives an overhang
Overhang seat
Overhang seats can arise in elections under the traditional mixed member proportional system, when a party is entitled to fewer seats as a result of party votes than it has won constituencies.-How overhang seats arise:...

. If the party does not have enough people on its list to fulfil its quota, then there is an underhang
Underhang seat
In proportional representation electoral systems, an underhang seat is a seat to which a party is entitled by virtue of the share of the votes it has received but is unable to fill through having submitted too few candidates....

.

There will be a referendum at the 2011 general election
New Zealand voting method referendum, 2011
The New Zealand voting system referendum, 2011, was a referendum on whether to keep the existing mixed member proportional voting system, or to change to another voting system, for electing Members of Parliament to New Zealand's House of Representatives...

 on whether MMP should be retained.

Electoral boundaries

The number of electorate MPs is calculated in three steps. The less populated of New Zealand's two principal islands, the South Island
South Island
The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...

, has a fixed quota of 16 seats. The number of seats for the North Island
North Island
The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...

 and the number of special reserved seats for Māori are then calculated in proportion to these. (The Māori seats
Maori seats
In New Zealand politics, Māori electorates, colloquially also called Māori seats, are a special category of electorate that gives reserved positions to representatives of Māori in the New Zealand Parliament...

 have their own special electoral roll; people of Māori descent may opt to enroll either on this roll or on the general roll, and the number of Māori seats is determined with reference to the number of adult Māori who opt for the Māori roll.)

The number of electorates is recalculated, and the boundaries of each redrawn so as to make them approximately equal in population within a tolerance of plus or minus 5%, after each quinquennial census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

. After the 2001 census, there were 7 Māori electorates and 62 general electorates, or 69 electorates in total. There were therefore normally 51 list MPs. By a quirk of timing, the 2005 election
New Zealand general election, 2005
The 2005 New Zealand general election held on 17 September 2005 determined the composition of the 48th New Zealand Parliament. No party won a majority in the unicameral House of Representatives, but the Labour Party of Prime Minister Helen Clark secured two more seats than nearest rival, the...

 was the first election since 1996
New Zealand general election, 1996
The 1996 New Zealand general election was held on 12 October 1996 to determine the composition of the 45th New Zealand Parliament. It was notable for being the first election to be held under the new Mixed Member Proportional electoral system, and produced a parliament considerably more diverse...

 at which the electorates were not redrawn since the previous election. A census was held on 7 March 2006 and new electorate boundaries released on 25 September 2007, creating an additional electorate in the North Island. For the election in 2011
New Zealand general election, 2011
The 2011 New Zealand general election on Saturday 26 November 2011 determined the membership of the 50th New Zealand Parliament.One hundred and twenty-one MPs were elected to the New Zealand House of Representatives, 70 from single-member electorates, including one overhang seat, and 51 from party...

 there will be 63 general electorates, 7 Māori electorates and 50 list seats.

Representation statistics

The Gallagher Index
Gallagher Index
The Gallagher Index is used to measure the disproportionality of an electoral outcome, that is the difference between the percentage of votes received and the percentage of seats a party gets in the resulting legislature. This is especially useful for comparing proportionality across electoral...

 is a measurement of how closely the proportions of votes cast for each party is reflected in the number of parliamentary seats gained by that party. The resultant disproportionality figure is a percentage - the lower the index, the better the match.
Election Disproportionality Number of Parties in Parliament
1946-1993 average 11.10% 2.4
1996
New Zealand general election, 1996
The 1996 New Zealand general election was held on 12 October 1996 to determine the composition of the 45th New Zealand Parliament. It was notable for being the first election to be held under the new Mixed Member Proportional electoral system, and produced a parliament considerably more diverse...

 
4.36% 6
1999
New Zealand general election, 1999
The 1999 New Zealand general election was held on 27 November 1999 to determine the composition of the 46th New Zealand Parliament. The governing National Party, led by Prime Minister Jenny Shipley, was defeated, being replaced by a coalition of Helen Clark's Labour Party and the smaller Alliance...

 
3.01% 7
2002
New Zealand general election, 2002
The 2002 New Zealand general election was held on 27 July 2002 to determine the composition of the 47th New Zealand Parliament. It saw the reelection of Helen Clark's Labour Party government, as well as the worst-ever performance by the opposition National Party.Arguably the most controversial...

 
2.53% 7
2005
New Zealand general election, 2005
The 2005 New Zealand general election held on 17 September 2005 determined the composition of the 48th New Zealand Parliament. No party won a majority in the unicameral House of Representatives, but the Labour Party of Prime Minister Helen Clark secured two more seats than nearest rival, the...

 
1.11% 8
2008
New Zealand general election, 2008
The 2008 New Zealand general election was held on 8 November 2008 to determine the composition of the 49th New Zealand parliament. The conservative National Party, headed by its Parliamentary leader John Key, won a plurality of votes and seats, ending 9 years of government dominated by the social...

 
5.21% 7
2011
New Zealand general election, 2011
The 2011 New Zealand general election on Saturday 26 November 2011 determined the membership of the 50th New Zealand Parliament.One hundred and twenty-one MPs were elected to the New Zealand House of Representatives, 70 from single-member electorates, including one overhang seat, and 51 from party...

 (preliminary results)
2.53% 8


The Gallagher index on the provisional election night figures for the 2008 election
New Zealand general election, 2008
The 2008 New Zealand general election was held on 8 November 2008 to determine the composition of the 49th New Zealand parliament. The conservative National Party, headed by its Parliamentary leader John Key, won a plurality of votes and seats, ending 9 years of government dominated by the social...

 is 4.06

See also

  • Electoral reform in New Zealand
    Electoral reform in New Zealand
    Electoral reform in New Zealand has, in recent years, become a political issue as major changes have been made to both Parliamentary and local government electoral systems.- Parliamentary Electoral Reform :...

  • History of voting in New Zealand
    History of voting in New Zealand
    -Early local body elections:Probably the first notable election held in the new colony was the election of the first Wellington Town council pursuant to the Municipal Corporations Act in October 1842. It was open to all "Burgessers". These were undoubtedly male only, though it is not clear whether...

  • New Zealand elections
    New Zealand elections
    Members of New Zealand's House of Representatives, commonly called "Parliament", normally gain their parliamentary seats through nationwide general elections, or in by-elections. General elections normally occur at least every three years in New Zealand, and operate using the Mixed Member...


External links

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