Ohariu-Belmont was a New Zealand parliamentary electorate from 1996 to 2008.
62-646: The 1996 election was notable for the significant change of electorate boundaries, based on the provisions of the Electoral Act 1993. Because of the introduction of the mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system, the number of electorates had to be reduced, leading to significant changes. More than half of the electorates contested in 1996 were newly constituted, and most of the remainder had seen significant boundary changes. In total, 73 electorates were abolished, 29 electorates were newly created (including Ohariu-Belmont), and 10 electorates were recreated, giving
124-436: A divisor of 8 (7 seats + 1 per the method's divisor formula) instead of 1. The resulting table would then give 7 seats for Scotland and 4 seats for Wales to the parties possessing the highest averages on the table, although both devolved parliaments do not use a table, instead using a sequential method. The compensatory effect characteristic of MMP is in the fact that a party that won constituency seats would have lower averages on
186-496: A list member, or other incumbent. A [REDACTED] Y or [REDACTED] N denotes status of any incumbent , win or lose respectively. Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent. A [REDACTED] Y or [REDACTED] N denotes status of any incumbent , win or lose respectively. Blue background denotes
248-491: A longtime supporter of MMP. The Green Party of Canada has generally been a staunch supporter of a move to a proportional electoral system. In June 2016, the Canadian House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform was formed to examine potential changes to the voting system with MMP being one of the options examined. The committee presented its report to Parliament on 1 December of the same year. In early 2017,
310-673: A member with a 'safe' constituency seat is therefore a tremendous asset to a minor party in New Zealand. In elections for the Scottish Parliament, there is no threshold set, because the district magnitude of each electoral region is small enough to impose an inherent threshold in the seat distribution calculations. The following countries currently have MMP representation. Countries which nominally use or have used MMP, but in practice had highly disproportional representation or it as otherwise not implemented are discussed in
372-517: A minority needs its own supermajority to overturn a decision. To support the view that majority rule protects minority rights better than supermajority rules, McGann pointed to the cloture rule in the US Senate, which was used to prevent the extension of civil liberties to racial minorities. Saunders, while agreeing that majority rule may offer better protection than supermajority rules, argued that majority rule may nonetheless be of little help to
434-433: A nationwide representative, parties may be required to achieve a minimum number of constituency seats, a minimum percentage of the nationwide party vote, or both. MMP differs from mixed-member majoritarian representation (often achieved by parallel voting ) in that the nationwide seats are allocated to political parties in a compensatory manner in order to achieve proportional election results across all seats (not just
496-479: A net loss of 34 electorates. The electorate covered the northern suburbs of the city of Wellington , i.e. Ngaio , Tawa , Khandallah and Johnsonville , and also the adjacent suburb of Belmont in the Western Hutt Valley . The electorate was established in the first MMP election of 1996 . It replaced Onslow , but also included Belmont so was renamed Ohariu-Belmont. In the 1993 election
558-575: A party must earn at least a certain percentage of the total party vote, or no candidates will be elected from the party list. Candidates having won a constituency will still have won their seat. In New Zealand the threshold is 5%, in Bolivia 3%, in Germany 5% for elections for federal parliament and most state parliaments. A party can also be eligible for list seats if it wins at least three constituency seats in Germany, or at least one in New Zealand. Having
620-602: A party wins too many constituency seats. The problem of ticket splitting strategies can be solved either by eliminating at least one of the two mechanisms that create the opportunity for abuse: This sort of strategy for a coalition of parties to capture a larger share of list seats may be adopted formally as a strategy. By way of example, in Albania's 2005 parliamentary election , the two main parties did not expect to win any list seats, so they encouraged voters to use their list votes for allied minor parties. This tactic distorted
682-432: A right might be majoritarian , but it would not be legitimate, because it would violate the requirement for equal rights . Voting theorists claimed that cycling leads to debilitating instability. Buchanan and Tullock note that unanimity is the only decision rule that guarantees economic efficiency. McGann argued that majority rule helps to protect minority rights , at least in deliberative settings. The argument
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#1732783756852744-621: Is a type of representation provided by some mixed electoral systems which combine local winner-take-all elections with a compensatory tier with party lists , in a way that produces proportional representation overall. Like proportional representation , MMP is not a single system, but a principle and goal of several similar systems. Some systems designed to achieve proportionality are still called mixed-member proportional, even if they generally fall short of full proportionality. In this case, they provide semi-proportional representation . In typical MMP systems, voters get two votes: one to decide
806-531: Is called MMP, while in other countries similar systems are known under other names. The seat linkage compensatory mixed system often referred to as MMP originates in Germany , and was later adopted with modifications under the name of MMP in New Zealand. In Germany, where is was differentiated from a different compensatory mixed system it was always known as personalized proportional representation (PPR) ( German : personalisiertes Verhältniswahlrecht ). Since
868-420: Is that cycling ensures that parties that lose to a majority have an interest to remain part of the group's process, because any decision can easily be overturned by another majority. Furthermore, suppose a minority wishes to overturn a decision. In that case, under majority rule it just needs to form a coalition that has more than half of the officials involved and that will give it power. Under supermajority rules,
930-607: Is the number of constituency seats that party won, so that the additional seats are compensatory (top-up). If a party wins more FPTP seats than the proportional quota received by the party-list vote, these surplus seats are called overhang seats ( Überhangmandate in German), which may be an obstacle to achieving full proportionality. When a party wins more constituency seats than it would be entitled to from its proportion of (party list) votes, most systems allow for these overhang seats to be kept by those candidates who earned it in
992-700: The 2008 New Zealand general election the Māori Party won 2.4% of the party vote, which would entitle them to 3 seats in the House, but won 5 constituency seats, leaving an overhang of 2 seats, which resulted in a 122-member house. If the party vote for the Māori Party had been more in proportion with the constituency seats won, there would have been a normal 120-member house. To combat disproportionalities caused by overhang seats, in most German states leveling seats ( Ausgleichsmandate in German) are added to compensate for
1054-594: The 2012 election , the voting system was adjusted to link the local and list seats to limit the decoy lists' effectiveness, resulting in an almost perfectly proportionate election result for the competing parties. Majority rule Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results In social choice theory ,
1116-645: The South Wales West region, and every election in the South Wales Central region apart from the 2003 election. This situation arises because Labour has continued to hold the overwhelming majority of constituency seats in these regions, and only around one-third of the total number of seats are available for distribution as additional regional seats. ( MMM ) ( Gallagher ) number of overhang seats As in numerous proportional systems , in order to be eligible for list seats in many MMP models,
1178-597: The United Kingdom the sometimes less proportional implementation of MMP used in Scotland and the London Assembly is referred to as the additional member system . In South Africa, MMP is generally referred to as a "mixed-system". The Scandinavian countries have a long history of using both multi-member districts (members elected through party-list PR) and nationally-based compensatory top-up seats using
1240-422: The majority rule ( MR ) is a social choice rule which says that, when comparing two options (such as bills or candidates ), the option preferred by more than half of the voters (a majority ) should win. In political philosophy , the majority rule is one of two major competing notions of democracy . The most common alternative is given by the utilitarian rule (or other welfarist rules), which identify
1302-461: The median voter theorem guarantees that majority-rule will tend to elect "compromise" or "consensus" candidates in many situations, unlike plurality-rules (see center squeeze ). Parliamentary rules may prescribe the use of a supermajoritarian rule under certain circumstances, such as the 60% filibuster rule to close debate in the US Senate . However such requirement means that 41 percent of
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#17327837568521364-611: The representative for their single-seat constituency , and one for a political party, but some countries use single vote variants . Seats in the legislature are filled first by the successful constituency candidates, and second, by party candidates based on the percentage of nationwide or region-wide votes that each party received. The constituency representatives are usually elected using first-past-the-post voting (FPTP). The nationwide or regional party representatives are, in most jurisdictions, drawn from published party lists , similar to party-list proportional representation . To gain
1426-504: The socially-optimal winner and the majority-preferred winner often overlap. Majority rule is the most common social choice rule worldwide, being heavily used in deliberative assemblies for dichotomous decisions, e.g. whether or not to pass a bill. Mandatory referendums where the question is yes or no are also generally decided by majority rule. It is one of the basic rules of parliamentary procedure , as described in handbooks like Robert's Rules of Order . One alternative to
1488-410: The "best near-winner" method in a four-region model, where the regional members are the local candidates of the under-represented party in that region who received the most votes in their local constituency without being elected in it ( Zweitmandat , literally "second mandate"). At the regional or national level (i.e. above the constituency level) several different calculation methods have been used, but
1550-511: The Government announced that it would accept only some of the committee's recommendations, and would not pursue the issue of electoral reform any further. The pan-European party VOLT Europa proposes transnational mixed-member proportional representation with the combination of Majority Judgment and party-list PR . In other cases, a party may be so certain of winning a large number of constituency seats that it expects no extra seats in
1612-541: The Ohariu-Belmont electorate. Unless otherwise stated, all MPs terms began and ended at general elections. Chauvel entered Parliament on 1 August 2006, following the resignation of Jim Sutton . Shanks entered Parliament on 7 February 2007, following the resignation of Don Brash . Blue background denotes the winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by
1674-673: The Onslow electorate had replaced the earlier Ohariu electorate which had existed since the 1978 election , and when in the 2008 election the Belmont area was shifted to the Hutt Valley electorate of Rimutaka , the electorate was renamed back to Ōhariu (with a macron ). Key United New Zealand joined with Future New Zealand to become United Future New Zealand , in 2002. Members of Parliament elected from party lists in elections where that person also unsuccessfully contested
1736-566: The additional seats). Under MMP, two parties that each receive 25% of the votes end up with about 25% of the seats, even if one party wins more constituency seats than the other. Depending on the exact system implemented in a country and the results of a particular election, the proportionality of an election may vary. Overhang seats may reduce the proportionality of the system, although this can be compensated for by allocating additional party list seats to cover any proportionality gap. The specific system of New Zealand for electing its parliament
1798-587: The bare minimum required to "win" because of the likelihood that they would soon be reversed. Within this atmosphere of compromise, a minority faction may accept proposals that it dislikes in order to build a coalition for a proposal that it deems of greater moment. In that way, majority rule differentiates weak and strong preferences. McGann argued that such situations encourage minorities to participate, because majority rule does not typically create permanent losers, encouraging systemic stability. He pointed to governments that use largely unchecked majority rule, such as
1860-536: The basic characteristic of the MMP is that the total number of seats in the assembly, including the single-member seats and not only the party-list ones, are allocated to parties proportionally to the number of votes the party received in the party portion of the ballot. This can be done by different apportionment methods : such as the D'Hondt method or the Sainte-Laguë method . Subtracted from each party's allocation
1922-619: The compensation mechanism was manipulated by decoy lists. Countries with systems which have been confused with mixed-member proportional representation: In March 2004, the Law Commission of Canada proposed a system of MMP, with only 33% of MPs elected from regional open lists, for the House of Commons of Canada but Parliament's consideration of the Report in 2004–05 was stopped after the 2006 election. The New Democratic Party has been
Ohariu-Belmont (New Zealand electorate) - Misplaced Pages Continue
1984-680: The constituency elections. A counter-example would be the In Germany's Bundestag , where constituency winners may not always keep their seats since the latest modification of the electoral law. In an MMP variant used in Romania in the 2008 and 2012 legislative elections , where constituency seats could only be earned by the winning candidate if they also achieved an absolute majority in their district, thereby eliminating overhang seats. In New Zealand House of Representatives , all members elected for constituencies keep their seats. For example, in
2046-434: The following properties: If voter's preferences are defined over a multidimensional option space, then choosing options using pairwise majority rule is unstable. In most cases, there will be no Condorcet winner and any option can be chosen through a sequence of votes, regardless of the original option. This means that adding more options and changing the order of votes ("agenda manipulation") can be used to arbitrarily pick
2108-651: The group, while under supermajoritarian rules participants might only need to persuade a minority (to prevent a change). Where large changes in seats held by a party may arise from only relatively slight change in votes cast (such as under FPTP), and a simple majority is all that is required to wield power (most legislatures in democratic countries), governments may repeatedly fall into and out of power. This may cause polarization and policy lurch, or it may encourage compromise, depending on other aspects of political culture. McGann argued that such cycling encourages participants to compromise, rather than pass resolutions that have
2170-569: The individual candidate vote in a clearly distinct fashion from open-list systems, it may still be considered mixed-member proportional in the sense of a proportional system having two kinds of MP: one (may be) elected by personal (candidate) votes, one elected by (closed list) votes. Previously, the federal elections used a flexible number of additional compensatory seats, also known as leveling seats , which essentially guaranteed mixed-member proportional representation even with extremely disproportional constituency results, but dramatically increased
2232-582: The least minorities. Under some circumstances, the legal rights of one person cannot be guaranteed without unjustly imposing on someone else. McGann wrote, "one man's right to property in the antebellum South was another man's slavery." Amartya Sen has noted the existence of the liberal paradox , which shows that permitting assigning a very small number of rights to individuals may make everyone worse off. Saunders argued that deliberative democracy flourishes under majority rule and that under majority rule, participants always have to convince more than half
2294-490: The majority rule is the set of plurality rules , which includes ranked choice-runoff (RCV) , two-round plurality , or first-preference plurality . This is often used in elections with more than two candidates. In these elections, the winning candidate is the one with the most votes after applying some voting procedure, even if a majority of voters would prefer some other candidate. The utilitarian rule , and cardinal social choice rules in general, take into account not just
2356-413: The members or more could prevent debate from being closed, an example where the majority will would be blocked by a minority. Kenneth May proved that the simple majority rule is the only "fair" ordinal decision rule, in that majority rule does not let some votes count more than others or privilege an alternative by requiring fewer votes to pass. Formally, majority rule is the only decision rule that has
2418-449: The minority, making it stronger (at least through its veto) than the majority. McGann argued that when only one of multiple minorities is protected by the super-majority rule (same as seen in simple plurality elections systems), so the protection is for the status quo, rather than for the faction that supports it. Another possible way to prevent tyranny is to elevate certain rights as inalienable . Thereafter, any decision that targets such
2480-425: The nature of the calculations used to distribute the regional list seats, overhang seats are not possible; the list allocation works like a mixed-member majoritarian system, but in using the d'Hondt method 's divisors to find the averages for the allocation, the first divisor for each party takes into account the number of constituency seats won by the party; i.e. a party that won 7 constituency seats would start with
2542-464: The next section. Though not all overhang seats are perfectly compensated for, New Zealand is widely considered to be a typical example of mixed-member proportional representation due to the high proportionality of the system (disregarding the electoral threshold). MMP replaced (modified): There are several other countries which attempted to introduce MMP by seat linkage compensation , but either not enough leveling seats were provided to achieve it, or
Ohariu-Belmont (New Zealand electorate) - Misplaced Pages Continue
2604-469: The number of list seats or "overhang" seats, Albania subsequently decided to change to a pure-list system. In an abusive gambit similar to that used in Albania, major parties feeling that they are unlikely to win a large number of list seats because of their advantage at the constituency level might choose to split their party in two, with one subdivision of the party contesting the constituency seats, while
2666-497: The number of voters who support each choice but also the intensity of their preferences . Philosophers critical of majority rule have often argued that majority rule does not take into account the intensity of preference for different voters, and as a result "two voters who are casually interested in doing something" can defeat one voter who has "dire opposition" to the proposal of the two, leading to poor deliberative practice or even to "an aggressive culture and conflict"; however,
2728-434: The other contests the list seats—assuming this is allowed by electoral law. The two linked parties could then co-ordinate their campaign and work together within the legislature, while remaining legally separate entities. The result of this approach, if it is used by all parties, would be to transform MMP into a de facto parallel voting mechanism . An example could be seen in the 2007 Lesotho general election . In this case
2790-470: The overhang seats and thereby achieve complete proportionality. For example, the provincial parliament ( Landtag ) of North Rhine Westphalia has, instead of the usual 50% compensatory seats, only 29% unless more are needed to balance overhangs. If a party wins more local seats than its proportion of the total vote justifies, the size of the Landtag increases so that the total outcome is fully proportional to
2852-634: The party's regional list: Bavaria uses seven regions for this purpose. A regional open-list method was recommended for the United Kingdom by the Jenkins Commission (where it is known as AMS) and for Canada by the Law Commission of Canada ; neither recommendation was ever implemented. In contrast, the open-list method of MMP was chosen in November 2016 by voters in the 2016 Prince Edward Island electoral reform referendum . In Baden-Württemberg , there were no lists prior to 2022; they used
2914-493: The plurality winner. In German, this localized list system now shares the name of PPR with the mixed systems still used in the federal states of Germany that are referred to as MMP in English. In English, due to this change, the system is no longer considered to be MMP in the sense of a mixed member system combining proportional and majoritarian representation , but it would be a personalized/localized version of PR. As it retains
2976-617: The proportional top-up (list seats). Some voters may therefore seek to achieve double representation by voting tactically for another party in the regional vote, as a vote for their preferred party in the regional vote would be wasted. This tactic is much less effective in MMP models with a relatively large share of list seats (50% in most German states , and 40% in the New Zealand House of Representatives ) and/or ones which add " balancing seats ", leading to fewer opportunities for overhangs and maintaining full proportionality, even when
3038-488: The representative is by default chosen using a single winner method (though this is not strictly necessary), typically first-past-the-post : that is, the candidate with the most votes (plurality) wins. Most systems used closed party lists to elect the non-constituency MPs (also called list MPs). In most jurisdictions, candidates may stand for both a constituency and on a party list (referred to in New Zealand as dual candidacy ). In Wales between 2006 and 2014 dual candidacy
3100-662: The same method as MMP, however because the local MPs are also elected using PR, these systems are not usually considered MMP as they are not mixed systems . As especially mixed electoral systems can be quite different, sometimes there is no consensus on their classification as mixed-member proportional, mixed majoritarian or something between the two. These cases include partially or conditionally compensatory systems such as those of Hungary, Mexico and South Korea, which are typically said to be supermixed systems or partially compensatory systems, but sometimes inaccurately referred to as MMP even though they are highly disproportional. In MMP,
3162-612: The size of the Bundestag. This meant that it was potentially the most proportional MMP system used after the one in New Zealand , where only overhang seats are added back as list seats, which resulted in minor flexibility of the parliament size. In the Canadian province of Quebec , where an MMP model was studied in 2007, it is called the compensatory mixed-member voting system ( système mixte avec compensation or SMAC). In
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#17327837568523224-432: The spirit of liberal democracy with the equal consideration of interests . Although the two rules can disagree in theory, political philosophers beginning with James Mill have argued the two can be reconciled in practice, with majority rule being a valid approximation to the utilitarian rule whenever voters share similarly-strong preferences. This position has found strong support in many social choice models, where
3286-558: The table than it would if the election used MMM. Because of no provision for overhang seats, there have been cases where a party ended up with fewer total seats than its proportional entitlement. This occurred, for example, in the elections in the South East Wales electoral region in both 2007 ( Welsh Conservatives under-represented) and in 2016 ( Welsh Labour over-represented, Plaid Cymru under-represented). Labour has also been over-represented on this basis in every election in
3348-753: The two leading parties, the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) and the All Basotho Convention (ABC) used decoy lists, respectively named the National Independent Party and the Lesotho Workers' Party to avoid the compensatory mechanisms of MMP. As a result, the LCD and its decoy were able to take 69.1% of the seats with only 51.8% of the vote. ABC leader Tom Thabane called the vote "free, but not fair." In
3410-476: The two-vote variant to make local members of parliament (MPs) more personally accountable. Voters can thus vote for the local person they prefer for local MP without regard for party affiliation, since the partisan make-up of the legislature is determined only by the party vote. In the 2017 New Zealand election , 27.33% of voters split their vote (voted for a local candidate of a different party than their party vote) compared to 31.64% in 2014. In each constituency,
3472-420: The variants used in Germany almost always produce very proportional results, the proportionality is emphasized over the mixed nature of the electoral system, and it is essentially considered a localized or personalized form of PR, used instead of conventional open-list systems . The new modified federal election system does not allow overhang seats at all, therefore not all local districts are guaranteed to elect
3534-407: The voter casts two votes: one for a constituency representative and one for a party. In the original variant used in Germany, citizens gave only one vote, so that voting for a representative automatically meant also voting for the representative's party, which is still used in some MMP elections today and is more robust against tactical voting than typical two-vote versions. Most of Germany changed to
3596-464: The votes, with other parties receiving additional list seats to achieve proportionality. The leveling seats are added to the normal number of seats for the duration of the electoral period. In the German state of Bavaria , the constituency vote and party vote are combined to determine the distribution of seats. Scotland uses a modified variant of MMP known as the additional member system where due to
3658-743: The winner of the electorate vote. Pink background denotes a candidate elected from their party list. Yellow background denotes an electorate win by a list member, or other incumbent. A [REDACTED] Y or [REDACTED] N denotes status of any incumbent , win or lose respectively. Mixed-member proportional representation Condorcet methods Positional voting Cardinal voting Quota-remainder methods Approval-based committees Fractional social choice Semi-proportional representation By ballot type Pathological response Strategic voting Paradoxes of majority rule Positive results Mixed-member proportional representation ( MMP or MMPR )
3720-418: The winner. In group decision-making voting paradoxes can form. It is possible that alternatives a, b, and c exist such that a majority prefers a to b, another majority prefers b to c, and yet another majority prefers c to a. Because majority rule requires an alternative to have majority support to pass, majority rule is vulnerable to rejecting the majority's decision. A super-majority rule actually empowers
3782-627: The working of the model to the point that the parties that won list seats were almost always different from the parties that won constituency seats. Only one constituency member was elected from parties that won list seats. The election was condemned by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe which said it failed to comply with international standards because of "serious irregularities", intimidation, vote-buying and "violence committed by extremists on both sides." Rather than increasing
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#17327837568523844-402: Was banned, i.e. candidates were restricted to contend either for a constituency or for a party list, but not both. If a candidate is on the party list, but wins a constituency seat, they do not receive two seats; they are instead crossed off the party list and the party seat goes to the next candidate down. In Bavaria , the second vote is not simply for the party but for one of the candidates on
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