page_title: Electoral system of New Zealand
section_title: MMP in New Zealand
hierarchical_section_title: Electoral system of New Zealand / MMP in New Zealand
caption_attribution_description: The prescribed voting form for mixed-member proportional representation general elections in New Zealand.
context_page_description: The New Zealand electoral system has been mixed-member proportional since 1996. MMP was introduced after a referendum in 1993. MMP replaced the first-past-the-post system New Zealand had previously used for most of its history.
  New Zealand has a single-house legislature, the House of Representatives, usually with 120 members, although the number can increase because of one or two overhang seats, depending on the outcome of the electoral process. The 52nd Parliament, elected in 2017, has 120 seats: 71 were filled by electorate MPs, with the remaining 49 from ranked party lists. The term of the New Zealand Parliament is set at three years.
  In 1893, New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the right to vote. This meant that theoretically, New Zealand had universal suffrage from 1893, meaning all adults 21 years of age and older were allowed to vote. However, the voting rules that applied to the European settlers did not apply to Māori, and their situation is still unique in that a number of seats in the New Zealand Parliament are elected by Māori voters alone.
  In contemporary New Zealand, generally all permanent residents and citizens over 18 are eligible to vote.
context_section_description: Until 1994, New Zealand used the first-past-the-post (FPP) electoral system, whereby the political party that won the most seats in a constituency elected the only MP from that constituency. This system favoured the two-party dominance of the National Party and the Labour Party. Smaller parties found it hard to gain representation; for example, despite gaining 16% of the vote in 1978 and 21% in 1981, the New Zealand Social Credit Party won only one and two seats, respectively.
  Spurred by public disillusionment in the political system, Labour campaigned in 1981 and 1984 on a promise to establish a Royal Commission into the electoral system. Following their election into government in 1984, Labour established the Royal Commission into the Electoral System, and the commission's 1986 report recommended the adoption of mixed-member proportional representation (MMP). After the government sidelining the issue for years, the Bolger National government responded to public pressure by holding an indicative referendum on the electoral system in 1992. After an overwhelming majority for change, a second, binding referendum was held in 1993 asking voters to choose between FPP and MMP.
  In 1994, New Zealand officially adopted MMP as its electoral system. Its defining characteristic is a mix of members of Parliament (MPs) from single-seat electorates and MPs elected from a party list, with each party's share of seats determined by its share of the party vote nationwide. The first MMP election was held in 1996. As a result, National and Labour lost their complete dominance in the House. Neither party has yet been able to govern on its own and has had to form coalitions to govern. The closest either party has come to governing alone was the 2014 election, when National won 60 seats, just 1 short of a majority.
  Under MMP, New Zealand voters have two votes. The first vote is the electorate vote. It determines the local representative for that electorate (geographic electoral district). The electorate vote works on a plurality system whereby whichever candidate gets the greatest number of votes in each electorate wins the seat. The second vote is the party vote. This determines the number of seats each party is entitled to overall – in other words, the proportionality of the House.
  Thresholds: There are two thresholds in the New Zealand MMP system. The first is that any Party which receives 5% or more of the Party vote is entitled to a share of the nominally 120 seats in the House of Representatives – even if the Party does not win a single electorate seat. For instance in the 2008 elections, the Greens failed to win any electorate seats but won 6.7% of the party vote and thereby earned nine seats in Parliament.
  The second threshold is that any Party that wins one or more electorate seats is entitled to an additional share of the nominally 120 seats in House of Representatives based on the percentage of the party vote – even if it doesn't win 5% of the vote. In 2008, the ACT Party won only 3.6% of the Party vote. But ACT got a total of five seats in the House of Representatives because an ACT candidate won the Epsom electorate; this has been called the "coat-tailing" rule. However, the New Zealand First party which got 4.07% of the list vote or below the 5% threshold was not returned to parliament in 2008.
  Seats in parliament are allocated to electorate MPs first. Then Parties fulfil their remaining quota (based on their share of the Party vote) from their list members. A closed list is used, and list seats are allocated by the Sainte-Laguë method, which favours minor parties more than the alternative D'Hondt method. If a Party has more electorate MPs than proportional seats, then it receives an overhang. This first occurred following the 2005 General Election when the Māori party won 4 electorates despite its overall party vote (2.1%) only entitling it to 3 seats, thus it received one overhang seat and the 48th Parliament subsequently consisted of 121 MPs. The 2008 and 2011 elections also saw the Māori Party receive overhang seats (2 and 1 r
caption: A sample MMP ballot paper
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