http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/editorial/221747/mmp-review

Non-voters gave largely the same reasons as in 2008 for not voting: "other commitments" (14%), "work commitments" (9%), "couldn't be bothered" (14%),…

any link about that?

1: They totally take power off each other, the more of them are in there. Part of Winston wanting less parties is he has the most power when there's only one of them, his, and…

That was essentially my proposal, and also the one offered by the Royal Commission, who recommended a modified form of Sainte-Laguë in the event…

At the moment, it's just a personality contest do see…

The first part of that claim (a threshold takes away small party seats) is true. The second is debateable ... the Sante Lague fomula used to apportion seats amongst those parties…

As above, assume that ACT, Mana, Winston and Colin Craig win their seats…

It's not really a very useful example, as the council table is a very different place to the caucus table. For starters, there are no real party affiliations at local government level, merely a spread of political proclivities ranging from…

* see a certain large cities "ex-green/lapsed-green/informal-green" mayor for an example.

Tom, it hasn't happened in other Green party offices…

Rich, you continue to make…

Which suggests that losing the overhang isn't that much of a problem, at least at…

From media coverage, didn't the party devote themselves to exactly that topic at their most recent national conference? Nice try, though.

How did you work that one out? Mana got 1.08% last time, the Maori Party got 2.39% in their best showing ever in '08.

It is interesting to consider if a proper coalition with the Greens would act as a dose of political purgative to a constipated Labour caucus, or if enough of the Greens would discover sitting…

one of those is more right than left, you realise?

Ok, my take on "no overhang" is that extra electorate seats get set aside when proportional calculations are done. So the simple case of Labour getting 20 seats on 5% of the party vote means we…

Of course, this is a fairly unlikely scenario. (and actually, the Greens would also lose list seats in the above situation and would need a few more points to compensate)

If you were following earlier, we have a two-vote MMP system. If a sizeable number of people split their votes electorate to Labour/ party to Green then Labour could still hold maybe 20 electorates (last election was 22), even if Labour went down…

I assume you guess those numbers wrong because an election resulting in National…

I think you and I have a different definition of "great".

The reactions of a large number of Labourites would also be worth keeping…

Perfectly well aware of that. I was trying not to over-qualify my point into a run on sentence that would give Proust the yips. :)

As far as I'm aware Labour is the only party currently in…

What would be great would be if National got 55%, Labour 15% and…

Whether the process is democratic or authoritarian, it seems fair to limit control over list selection, or in fact any other party rules, to members of the party…

Otherwise, left or right leaning voters could be “helping” the other parties choose their most incompetent…

No. We can do better with less fuss than that. Just a little more information conveyed meaningfully and continuously by an independent agency like…

Only if you're thinking in FPP terms. There are more parties than two.

Sure – and any views I have on the Labour Party's constitutional reforms are unsolicited and generally ignored. I'd say it's a draw. :) And in all seriousness, do you think the United States' exhaustive (and exhausting) primary processes lead to either better quality…

I think that for Labour, the contest that matters is on their right, between them, National and NZF. All of those parties are as undemocratic as each other, so they cancel each other out.

The other contest on their left, between Labour and…

very good

but the rest of us don't.

And so he should – it’s eminently smirk-worthy watching a a PR flack/lobbyist with a, shall we say, patchy track record of disclosing conflicts of interest when giving talking head playing the blushing virgin.

And if you want to talk about a…

You seem to be assuming some perfect 'market' of electoral knowledge exists, much like an economist's fantasyland. I believe the checks and balances that ethical media and other players provided simply aren't there to the same degree any more. Market failure…

Indeed. David Farrar has made similar observations in the past.

The solution for National Party members concerned about this is…

In the National Party, there is a very highly democratic process that they begin with their regional conferences and then…

Quite. And here's another proposal: New Zealand First could have held US-style primaries to…

The technical term for this is "Labour".

We could. And as Andrew points out, we do.

But I'm not sure the market needs that help. "Party Z is so…

That is true, but it is a relatively obscure place and the actual list selection information is buried in among all the other party rules.

I think…

The constitutions of all registered political parties (including their candidate selection rules) are available here,…

67. Again, it can be argued that this power is already in the hands of party members. If party members…