How did New Zealand get proportional representation? Prior to 1996, MPs were elected to New Zealand’s House of Representatives using the same unrepresentative First Past The Post (FPTP) system that is used to elect MPs to the UK’s House of Commons. Since... Posted 02 Aug 2022
Barriers to entry: How do electoral thresholds work? A common feature of many Party List PR systems is an electoral threshold – a pre-set bar that parties have to reach if they want to win seats. Posted 03 Sep 2021
What would the party system look like if the UK had proportional representation? By looking at the experiences of similar countries and the devolved governments, we can see which kinds of party system are most probable given the sorts of voting system that are most likely to be... Posted 09 Jun 2021
ERS in the Press – October 2020 This month has seen a renewed interest in proportional representation internationally. Willie Sullivan backed up the case for a fairer voting system in Canada, drawing on his experience in Scotland. “If you want a system... Posted 29 Oct 2020
Does PR mean coalitions? As New Zealand shows – it’s all down to the voters The New Zealand Labour party are celebrating a landslide win, with 49 percent of the vote and enough MPs to form a single-party government on their own. This is the first time since New Zealand... Posted 20 Oct 2020
Early voting doesn’t have to mean long queues Two news stories stood out this week. As early voting opened in some US states, images of voters queuing all day to vote were greeted as signs of enthusiasm in America but confusion outside, while... Posted 15 Oct 2020
New Zealand’s MMP electoral system: how does it work? New Zealand actor Jack Buchanan explains how MMP works in this music video created in partnership with the New Zealand Electoral Commission. Politics in New Zealand can look to outsiders to be much like politics... Posted 14 Oct 2020
What does preferential voting mean? There has been talking recently about using preferential voting to solve the Brexit impasse – whether through MPs using it to find a form of Brexit that parliament can support or through a referendum. When... Posted 26 Mar 2019
Four countries where First Past the Post is dead and buried As a Halloween treat, we thought we’d have a spooky stroll around the graveyard of First Past the Post. Around the world, voters in country after country, tired of it’s tricks, have chosen to bury... Posted 31 Oct 2018
New Zealand election: Citizens make the most of fair votes Saturday saw New Zealand go to the polls for its eighth election since they ditched the broken first past the post system and adopted Mixed-Member Proportional representation (MMP) in 1993. Mixed-Member Proportional is a variant... Posted 27 Sep 2017