MMP Review: other issues

The final part of the MMP Review is other issues. In short any other ideas you think might improve MMP that were not covered in the specific issues.

I believe there are three other areas that could improve MMP.

The first is introducing preferential voting to electorate seats. In preferential voting, voters would rank the candidates in order of preference. When the votes are counted, if no candidate has an outright majority (50%+) the candidate with the least votes is eliminated. Their votes are reassigned to the candidate ranked second on each ballot. This continues until one candidate has an outright majority. This requires any winning candidate to have as broad a support as possible, it also reduces the chances of tactical voting and shady deals by political parties.

Secondly I believe that List MPs who resign from their parties should lose their list seat. They were elected because people support the policies of their party, if they no longer support those policies then they are welcome to resign but have no right to hold onto their seat.

And thirdly, I believe that electorate MPs who resign their seats forcing a by-election should not be allowed to stand in the by-election. By resigning they should be indicating they no longer wish to represent that electorate, not that they wish to increase their party funding.

This concludes my series of posts on the issues being considered in the MMP Review. I will be making my official submission later today and will post it online.