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| Electoral systems |
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In proportional representation (PR) electoral systems, an underhang seat is a seat that becomes vacant because the party that was entitled to it by virtue of its share of the total votes cast was unable to fill it through having submitted too few candidates.
Under party-list proportional representation systems, parties receive a number of seats in proportion to the number of votes they received.[ citation needed ] If a party does not have enough people to fill its vacancies, there is an underhang. For example, if a party wins enough votes for ten seats, but only has seven people nominated on its list, then there is an underhang of three seats.
A way of dealing with underhangs is to allow the party to nominate additional people to become MPs. However, parties with underhangs usually are not entitled to retroactively add to their list, and lose the potential seats represented by the underhang. Parties aim to avoid the problem by having a substantially larger list than they would hope to win as seats.
If New Zealand's 99 MP Party (whose stated manifesto was to reduce the size of parliament) had received five percent of the vote in the 2005 New Zealand general election, they would have been entitled to six seats within the 120-seat House of Representatives. But because they had just two people on their list, [1] they would have filled only two seats. The House would thus have shrunk by four MPs. Since the party received only 0.03% of the vote, this eventuality was avoided.
The issue of an underhang returned at the 2023 New Zealand general election. Due to a missed deadline, Liz Gunn's New Zealand Loyal party only managed to register two candidates on their party list, [2] meaning that if they had exceeded the five percent threshold required to enter parliament (without winning an electorate), it would have resulted in four empty seats in the resulting parliament. [3] Much like the 99 MP party before them, they failed to be elected, receiving just 1.2% of the vote, far short of the required minimum. [4]
In the Scottish Parliament an underhang seat was caused by the death of Margo MacDonald in 2014. As she was elected as a regional list MSP as an independent (effectively the sole candidate of "the Margo party") her seat was left vacant until the next election. [5]
ACT New Zealand, also known as the ACT Party or simply ACT, is a right-wing, classical liberal, right-libertarian, and conservative political party in New Zealand. It is currently led by David Seymour, and is in coalition with the National and New Zealand First parties, as part of the Sixth National government.
Electoral reform in New Zealand has been a political issue in the past as major changes have been made to both parliamentary and local government electoral systems.
The 1996 New Zealand general election was held on 12 October 1996 to determine the composition of the 45th New Zealand Parliament. It was notable for being the first election to be held under the new mixed-member proportional (MMP) electoral system, and produced a parliament considerably more diverse than previous elections. Under the new MMP system, 65 members were elected in single-member districts by first-past-the-post voting, while a further 55 "top-up" members were allocated from closed lists to achieve a proportional distribution based on each party's share of the nationwide party vote.
The 1993 New Zealand general election was held on 6 November 1993 to determine the composition of the 44th New Zealand Parliament. Voters elected 99 members to the House of Representatives, up from 97 members at the 1990 election. The election was held concurrently with an electoral reform referendum to replace the first-past-the-post system, with all members elected from single-member electorates, with mixed-member proportional representation. It saw the governing National Party, led by Jim Bolger, win a second term in office, despite a major swing away from National in both seats and votes, and the carrying of the referendum by 53.9% to 46.1%.
A list MP is a member of parliament (MP) elected from a party list rather than from a geographic electoral district. The place in Parliament is due to the number of votes that the party won, not to votes received by the MP personally. This occurs only in countries which have an electoral system based wholly or partly on party-list proportional representation.
Barbara Joy Stewart was a New Zealand politician. She was a Member of Parliament for the New Zealand First party from 2002 to 2008 and again from 2011 to 2017.
An electorate or electoral district is a geographic constituency used for electing a member (MP) to the New Zealand Parliament. The size of electorates is determined such that all electorates have approximately the same population.
The New Zealand electoral system has been mixed-member proportional (MMP) since the 1996 election. MMP was introduced following a referendum in 1993. It replaced the first-past-the-post (FPP) system New Zealand had previously used for most of its history. Under MMP, New Zealanders have two secret ballot votes to elect members of Parliament (MPs). The first vote is for a candidate from an electorate, a geographic electoral district. The second is the party vote for the political party the voter wants to form the government.
Epsom is a New Zealand electorate in Auckland, returning one Member of Parliament to the New Zealand House of Representatives. Since the 2014 general election, Epsom has been represented by David Seymour, the leader of the ACT Party.
Remutaka is an electorate returning one member to the New Zealand House of Representatives. Since the 2008 general election, the seat has been represented by Chris Hipkins, who served as Prime Minister of New Zealand and is currently the Leader of the Opposition.
In politics, a casual vacancy is a situation in which a seat in a deliberative assembly becomes vacant during that assembly's term. Casual vacancies may arise through the death, resignation or disqualification of the sitting member, or for other reasons.
The Bill and Ben Party was a New Zealand joke political party formed in 2008 and voluntarily deregistered in 2010. The party's leaders were Jamie Linehan and Ben Boyce of the TV3 satirical sports show Pulp Sport. In the 2008 general election the party secured 0.56% of the vote, outpolling every other party not in parliament prior to the election. It gained the ninth-highest number of votes out of the 19 parties standing for election.
The 2011 New Zealand general election took place on Saturday 26 November 2011 to determine the membership of the 50th New Zealand Parliament.
The 2011 New Zealand voting system referendum was a referendum on whether to keep the existing mixed member proportional (MMP) voting system, or to change to another voting system, for electing Members of Parliament to New Zealand's House of Representatives. It was held on 26 November 2011 in conjunction with the 2011 general election.
The 2014 New Zealand general election took place on Saturday 20 September 2014 to determine the membership of the 51st New Zealand Parliament.
The 50th New Zealand Parliament was elected at the 2011 general election. It had 121 members, and was in place from December 2011 until September 2014, followed by the 2014 general election. The first sitting of the 50th Parliament was held on 20 December 2011, where members were sworn in and Lockwood Smith was elected Speaker of the House. This was followed by the speech from the throne on 21 December. John Key continued to lead the Fifth National Government. Following the resignation of Smith, David Carter was elected Speaker.
The 51st New Zealand Parliament was elected at the 2014 general election. This Parliament consists of 121 members and was in place from September 2014 until August 2017, followed by the 2017 New Zealand general election. Following the final vote count John Key was able to continue to lead the Fifth National Government.
Elizabeth Jane Cooney, commonly known as Liz Gunn, is the leader of the New Zealand Loyal Party, and is an anti-vaccination activist, conspiracy theorist, and a former television presenter from New Zealand.
The next New Zealand general election will be held after the current 54th New Zealand Parliament is dissolved or expires. The current Parliament was elected on Saturday, 14 October 2023. The last possible date for the election to be held is Saturday, 19 December 2026.
(NZ Electoral Commission statement) If NZ Loyal won over five per cent of the party vote, or an electorate seat, they would be allocated seats in Parliament on the basis of their share of the party vote. But if there are insufficient list candidates then the remaining seats aren't filled and remain vacant.
