Overhang

The next issue being covered by the MMP Review is the question of what happens when a party wins an electorate seat but its percentage of the party vote does not reach 0.83%, creating an overhang.

Overhangs are themselves a hangover from First Past the Post and New Zealand's attachment's to electorate seats. They would not be a problem in a list only parliament, however the New Zealand voting public is a wee way from being mature enough to handle a list only parliament and I'm not sure it is even desirable.

So the questions remains how do we deal with them?

The electoral commission offers three options for managing overhangs.
1) 120 + overhang (a party is allowed to keep any overhang seats it wins, but other parties are still awarded the same number of seats they are entitled to and the size of the legislature is temporarily increased)
2) 120 + overhang + balance (Allow the overhang but compensate other parties with additional seats to ‘balance’ the number of members in the legislature to ensure overall proportionality, this increases the size of the legislature as well)
3) 120 - overhang (A party is allowed to keep any overhang seats it wins, and the corresponding number of list seats allocated to other parties is reduced to maintain the overall number of seats in the legislature, the size of the legislature does not increase)

I am in favour of option two. Overhangs are an inevitable consequence of a system that values electoral seats so highly and I believe it is very important to maintain the overall proportionality of parliament. This also reduces the likelihood of overhang seats wielding disproportionate influence (Although some may argue they already do).