For all those @MakeVotesMatter campaigners, I thought I’d share my experience as a Brit voting for the first time away from the UK First Past the post debacle in a fair voting system here in New Zealand. THREAD /1

First. I’ve always lived in seats in the UK where a large majority supported a different party. This has meant rarely seeing candidates and a decidedly patchy response from my MP to any concerns raised - usually cursory stock answers rather than genuine listening /2

I’ve lived in NZ just under 2 years and today cast my first vote in their national elections and two referendums about conscience issues of policy. /3

A few things stand out about the NZ system and about how easy they make it to vote... /4

First, really easy to register to vote online, then you get a small credit card sized card you can carry with you. That’s good because there are loads of places to vote, like when you’re out doing your shopping, and the polling booths stay open for TWO WEEKS /5

The government uses some very good and creative and funny ads to stimulate turnout and have teams targeted towards groups in society with lower usual participation (this is an independent commission not party political) /6

Brilliantly, you can vote anywhere in the country at any polling place, so if you're away on holiday for the whole two weeks, or work/ study away from where you live, no problem /7

Now to the system itself:

Three excellent features

1. You two votes: you get to vote for your local constituency candidate in a 'first past the post' way. If they get the largest vote share they are elected. So you keep the strong personal accountability BUT.... /8

You ALSO get to vote for your preferred party, which can be different.

The 64 constituency MPs elected by first past the post then have 49 other MPs join them in order to rebalance the total parliament in line with the proportions of PARTY votes people cast /9

The genius of this is, of course, that EVERYONE'S party vote counts the same regardless of where you live.

It also means you can see people's first preference at a party level even if they choose to vote Tactically for a constituency MP. /10

Like the candidate's party but think they are a tool? Vote to eject them from your constituency whilst still backing the party

Think the MP is a great person & servant to the community but dislike their policies? Vote for them but help put a different party in charge

/11

It is argued proportionate systems lead to fringe parties holding the balance of power.

NZ partly solves this by allowing a party to have a proportionate share only if they EITHER get 5% of the nationwide vote OR come first in 1 of the 64 constituencies.

Why is this good? /12

... Because it limits extremists platforms but does allow a breakthrough and for regionally concentrated parties to have their fair share

This system also allows the 2 major parties to tack to the populus. For example, if ppl feel the labour party m is too centrist, a Labour-Green coalition is likely. If ppl feel the right of centre parties are too extreme, they can stick with the more moderate one /13

Finally... No electoral system is perfect.

But at a time when it's easy to lose heart, look at the recent results:

/End