Tag Archive for 'alliance'

Minnows

Published
by
lprent
on November 22, 2008
in election 2008
. 21 Comments
I always love reading the 100 Word Blog. So few words and such a high degree of clarity. Richard has surpassed himself with this post. All I can say is ouch!, ask to reproduce it, and extend its readership. It is quoted below in full as per usual.

Minnow Party post election round up
While the Christian parties had 1996 to give them hope, most knew they had no chance.  While the Libertarianz and the Workers’ Party would be happy just to stand by their ideals, you have to wonder why the Alliance doesn’t just join Labour or the Greens or why the Marxists of RAM are so coy about their politics.

And then there’s the sheer embarrassment of the results. Having poured their efforts into Mangere, the Family Party gained only 856 votes.  RAM claims 3,000 members but the overwhelming majority didn’t vote for them, they only received 405 votes.

The polls are weird

Published
by
lprent
on September 2, 2008
in polls
. 10 Comments
Dave at Big News has a good post up on a vagaries of the polls. It expands on something that Idiot Savant noticed at No Right Turn in his post Priceless.

I/S observed:-

I don’t normally poll blog, but this I can’t resist: according to the graphic for the latest Herald digipoll, the Christian Heritage Party - which disbanded in 2006 in the wake of its former leader Graham Capill’s conviction for child rape - is polling 0.4%, ahead of both the Alliance (which contrary to popular belief, is still around) and (this is the best bit) United Future. So, a non-existent party beats a sitting minister outside cabinet.

Dave’s post How weird is this? then expands:-

But it gets better.

The CHP’s vote has doubled since April - and it is the only party to achieve that feat as well. [ Update: Not true, Act also did].

After some examination, he concludes

Update watch the Kiwi, Family, and United Future vote jump at the next big poll or the one after. If the former two get their act together and let everyone know who they are. Most people - even Christians - don’t know the difference between Kiwi and Family parties.

I’d agree that could happen. I’m just not sure that the little fighting factions will ever get onto a common message.

Comment readers here are probably aware that there is little I like about the art of public polling in New Zealand. The results are all over the place because the methodology is very suspect and not published. In particular they do not show the numbers of people who they were unable to contact (because of lack of landlines or busy lives), the number who refused to participate, and few show the number of undecided voters. It makes them effectively useless for anything except trend changes amongst the politically engaged.

Well almost - this set of observations highlights the other side of the polling problem. So far, voters just haven’t taken that much of an interest in politics so far for the upcoming election. So much so that a significant voting population hasn’t figured out that they are ‘voting’ in the polls for a defunct party.

Thanks to I/S and dave for brightening my morning.