New Zealand General Election
It’s time for the General Election! Voting starts on October 3, so I thought I’d go through how parliament is elected here. In this post I cover voting during local elections and eligibility for voting (you DO NOT have to be a citizen to vote in New Zealand, so definitely check your eligibility.) The General Election is run a little differently, so here are the highlights:
New Zealand general elections happen every 3 years. The prime minister gets to call the election. Originally the election was scheduled for September 17, but because of the second lockdown, it was moved to October 17.
New Zealand has an MMP (mixed member proportional) voting system. This means that each voter gets two votes, one for their community representative (aka an electorate of which there are 72 total elected) and one for a political party (of which 48 additional representatives get seats in parliament.)
A political party that gets one electorate seat or 5% of the party vote gets a share of the seats in parliament.
There are 120 seats in parliament, and the ruling group needs 61 seats to govern.
Because there are many political parties (18 are currently registered but only 5 are currently in parliament) there is almost always a combination of parties that come together to create a majority.
Parties can form a formal coalition or form a confidence and supply agreement to support each other on certain issues.
As an American, I understand voting for an electorate candidate, but the party vote is very different than what I’m used to. Essentially, this is a way to force compromise and coalitions to form, ensuring that each party gets about the same percentage of parliament seats as they have overall party votes. It also means that you don’t know exactly who might be in parliament as each party comes up with a list of candidates ranked in order. So if a party gets a large enough percentage to get their top five candidates seats, those people will be in parliament, but numbers six onwards won’t.
The simplest, best explanation for this system is this ear worm of a song by Re: News and the Electoral Commission. It’s worth a listen!
Prior to voting, it is a good idea to review the policies for each of the parties and to review their party lists. The 18 registered political parties are:
ACT New Zealand - Currently has one member in parliament.
New Zealand First - Currently has nine members in parliament, all from the party list.
New Zealand Labour Party - Currently has 46 members in parliament with 29 electorate seats and 17 from the party list. In a coalition with New Zealand First and an agreement with the Greens.
The Green Party - Currently has eight members of parliament, all from the party list.
The New Zealand National Party - Currently has 54 members of parliament, 39 electorate seats and 15 from the party list.
There are also a number of unregistered parties, like the NZ Public Party. The two main parties are Labour and National, with Labour on the left and National on the right of the political spectrum, but to be fair, I’d put both of them to the left of the democrats in the US. There is a handy tool that can give you an idea of what parties you might align with found here.
This year there are also two referendums to vote on: legalising cannabis for recreational use and the end of life choice referendum. So all together I will have four votes this election. Unlike in the local Kiwi elections, for a general election, we go to polling stations and don’t mail in our ballots.
New Zealand makes voting about as easy as it possibly can be. The Electoral Commission just sent me my voting package which includes an EasyVote Card.
I take my card to the polling place of my choice anytime between October 3 and October 17. There is an easy online map to use found here, and from what I can tell, there are polling places galore. I counted five within a 15 minute walk of my house. In New Zealand, there are also options to vote by mail or authorize someone to pick up voting papers for you if you can’t get to a polling station yourself. There are protections in place to ensure that workers can have at least two hours off from work to go to the polls without docked pay and that people in prison serving less than three year sentences have the opportunity to vote. (If you’ve served your sentence, you can vote once you are out.) There are even voting teams that visit jail cells for people who happen to be in custody on election day.
