Election 2008: Is it Fair?

Another thought on the election has come to me.

Ask yourself, is this electoral system fair when a party gets 4.21% of the vote and gets no members of parliament while parties with less votes gets members.

Two parties with less than 1% of the vote now have members of parliament i.e. (0.89 [United Future]; 0.93 [Anderton]). Maori and Act have five members of parliament (2.24 [Maori]; 3.72 ]Act]). Yet neither did as well as NZ First but NZ First is not in parliament at all.

It seems to me that the system is flawed. Sure, those that got one, Rodney Hide and the Maori's won electoral seats, and one can argue that as a result they deserve their places. But I think there is a problem here. NZ First deserve on a proportional representation basis to have more in parliament than all of these parties.

Is the system fair? Then again, life's tough in politics.

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