Finally Getting a Blog Debate on the Worth of a Party Vote

Cathy Odger's excellent blog on why she is voting for ACT has started a debate on the value of voting for Act and why some people want to vote for who they perceive will win! Extraordinary some are treating the election when we can throw Helen Clark and her mendacious mutant mob out as a day the Races, but there you go...

This has been picked up by David Seymour here, DPF here and Sir Humphrey's here.

I commented over at Cathy's last night and at DPF today.

In essence a Vote for Act is vital for the Right. I used the Elections calculator.

To cover it again:
I will be two ticks ACT.
There are two important points

1. My electorate tick (for Epsom) will aim to get Rodney Hide over the line - helping assure the ACT party vote is not redistributed. Yeah I know I am taking on a national responsibility.
2. The top echelon of ACT are streets ahead of the bottom dwellers of National or any other party - which is where a redistributed vote gets placed.

eg Imagine National gets to form a Government with the following shares on the night:
National 41% Lab 40% Act 1 seat and 4% NZF 7% and Maori 5 seats. There would be an overhang of 1 seat.

The parliament would have 52 National - List cutoff Chris Tremain - Napier and the top five ACT candidates - Hide, Newman, Shirley, Franks and Graham Scott get seats. With 52 Nats + 5 Act The National led Govt has 57 cf to Lab/Maori at 55 with help from Winnie on the cross benches support as you go....and possible support from Dunne as National is the biggest party. National is tantalisingly close to being in Government.

Act will vote for sensible National policies. Everyone on the Right is happy.

But if say,
National still only gets 41% but ACT don't get Rodney home and don't make the 5% threshold. The Act vote is redistributed across all parties. National gets 41%, Labour gets 40%, Maori get 5% etc of Act's votes.

The effect is there are no ACT MP's and National gets only two more MP's - for simplicity it will be 53 and 54 on their list - Mita Harris New Lynn and Mike Leddy Rimutaka. Well known, familiar big contributors to the national debate? Not. These two candidates are no comparison for any of the top ACT people. They will be donkey's braying for the National carrot if you will pardon the pun.

Also with the redistribution Lab/Maori are on 58 vs Nat 54 - National then absolutely dependent on Winnie's choices.

This is therefore a no brainer - If you are in the Epsom electorate you vote for Rodney. Remember for what its worth, Worth gets home as he is 16 on the Nat list...

Even if you give your electorate vote to National (or Labour for that matter - and why would you - but choice gives people funny urges) you still vote for Rodney...cannot be simpler.

Put another way,

If Act's vote collapses into National, and all bar 1% of Act's 'normal' vote votes for National (on the sad and misguided logic of voting for a 'winner' - unlikely) National will only get get another 2 no names home. National will still be short of the numbers they get in scenario 1. 56 vs 57 seats and still with no simple majority. Still in Winnie's hands and no heavy weight Right sided support in the House.

That is the Right strategy. Tell all your mates if you live in the Eastern suburbs.