Adults get an electorate vote and a party vote, but only one government. Abby explores how those two choices fit together under MMP.
I have been trying to understand how our election works, and there is something I find quite funny.
When adults vote in Aotearoa New Zealand, they get two votes.
Not one. Two.
But we don't end up with two governments. Usually, we don't even end up with just one political party running everything.
So what exactly is happening?
## The first vote is for a person
Imagine you live in Christchurch.
There will be several people standing to represent your electorate in Parliament. You choose the candidate you want.
That's your electorate vote.
The candidate who gets the most electorate votes wins that seat. They become one of the Members of Parliament who represent people from that area.
So far, quite straightforward.
## The second vote is for a party
This is where things become interesting.
Your party vote helps decide how many seats each qualifying political party gets in Parliament overall.
The system is called Mixed Member Proportional representation, or MMP.
That's a very long name for an idea that is actually quite sensible: the make-up of Parliament should broadly reflect how people voted.
Imagine a pretend election where a party receives 30% of the party votes.
Under MMP, it would generally receive about 30% of the seats in Parliament, provided it qualifies for seats.
The electorate seats it wins are counted as part of its total. Other seats are filled using candidates from the party's list.
## What if no party gets enough seats?
Then parties have to talk to each other.
Sometimes for quite a long time.
They negotiate agreements about which policies they will support and how they might govern together.
It's a bit like a group project at school, except the decisions affect an entire country, and everyone has already announced their own plan.
## Here's the part I like
You don't have to give your two votes to the same party.
You might think one candidate would do a particularly good job representing your neighbourhood, while preferring a different party's ideas for the country.
Your two votes let you express those different choices.
## Abby's question
If you could invent your own voting system, would you choose one where the candidate with the most votes wins everything, or one where different groups receive representation according to their share of the votes?
What would be fairer?
And could your system have problems of its own?
Explore more: Try Abby's Labs' election activities and see how different voting systems work.