ALTHOUGH the forthcoming national election is definitely playing second fiddle to the RWC, there will be some important voting  issues to be decided for NZ.  Douglas Demchy is a student who aspires to have a political career. He’s also a part-time barman at The Backbencher Pub. We asked him to summarise the options for Capital Times.
The 2011 General Election on November 26 will give us a chance to elect our MPs and to say what electoral system future general elections will be held under. This will be done through a referendum that will ask two questions. The first question will ask if New Zealand should keep the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system. But what exactly is MMP?
MMP is our current electoral system. There are three main points about MMP. The first of these is that you have two votes. One vote is for your electorate MP and the other is your party vote. The second is that in order for a party to be elected they need to get 5% of the party vote. Alternatively if a candidate of their party wins an electorate, they can bring other MPs in with them even if they get fewer than 5% of the party vote. The third point is that under MMP one party will be very unlikely to govern alone, coalition governments are required instead.
The second question asked will be what system voters would like if MMP is dumped. There are four alternatives available. First Past the Post (FPP)  gives you only one vote, for your electorate MP. Governments elected under FPP are usually one party only. Preferential Voting (PV) gets you to you rank the candidates: 1, 2, 3, etc. The first candidate to get over half of the first preference votes is elected. Under Single Transferable Vote (STV) you rank the candidates as under PV, but in order to be elected a candidate needs to reach a quota of the first preferential votes. Under STV, electorates are represented by multiple MPs, rather than one. Under Supplementary Member (SM)  you exercise two votes, for your electorate MP and a party vote, similar to MMP. The one key difference is that candidates who win an electorate seat cannot bring in more members of parliament.
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