Talk:Party lists in the 2011 New Zealand general election

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Elections and Referendums, an ongoing effort to improve the quality of, expand upon and create new articles relating to elections, electoral reform and other aspects of democratic decision-making. For more information, visit our project page.Elections and ReferendumsWikipedia:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsTemplate:WikiProject Elections and ReferendumsElections and Referendums articles

New Zealand: Politics Low‑importance

	New Zealand portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject New Zealand, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of New Zealand and New Zealand-related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.New ZealandWikipedia:WikiProject New ZealandTemplate:WikiProject New ZealandNew Zealand articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the New Zealand politics task force (assessed as Mid-importance).

Green position 19

"TBA" is not correct for position 19 in the Green Party List. It seems that the previous #19 has been withdrawn: it was Jeanette Elley when announced at the end of May. I'm not sure how to edit the table to better show this. Ridcully Jack (talk) 21:30, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Now been fixed (she reappeared on the website); but it's not entirely clear that Jack McDonald is position 30 on the list. I guess when lists are published on election.org.nz it will be clearer. Ridcully Jack (talk) 09:29, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Jack McDonald is now displayed with the number 30 again, though Alex Kruize doesn't have the 31 he once did. Green Party rules as of September 2010 (section 5.3.2 of this PDF) say that candidates in positions 31 and above are to be ranked alphabetically, but they don't seem to have finished adding candidates yet, and even if they had, I'm not sure what they mean by alphabetically. (By first name or last name? Is "A" closest to the top, or highest in number? The website uses first names and starts with "A", but their 2008 list sorted by last names, went from "W" to "B" rather than the other way around, and seems to have had an exception anyway.) I think you're right about needing to wait for the official publication. -- Vardion (talk) 06:03, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From that document I think we could safely remove #31, Alex Kruize, for now, until we find out if the website list from 31 and above is complete. It looks like the candidates on the website have been alphabetised on first name (which is a little odd). However, since the Greens would have to poll over 22% to get to this position on their list, it probably doesn't particularly matter if the list on this page doesn't have all 55 candidates. Either we include all 55 (presuming that it is a complete list), or we include the first 30. Ridcully Jack (talk) 08:31, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Length of lists

Although the information put out by Elections New Zealand shows the National and Labour lists being truncated to 65 people, my understanding is that it's a case of Elections NZ simply not feeling a need to list them past this point, not a sign that the lists themselves have been trimmed. In the last election, some public informational material (the website, and I think the mail-out) didn't show anyone past the 65th spot, but the more formal official reports drawn up afterwards (i.e. the E9 stuff) show that lists longer than that were acknowledged. However, I can't find any solid reference to that effect, so for all I know, I'm mistaken about it. Does anyone know something about this? -- Vardion (talk) 23:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if the Electoral Commission will answer a question about it, and possibly clarify the website? Might have a go, and seek an answer at the horse's mouth. Ridcully Jack (talk) 23:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I may have found the rule that limits the public informational material to 65 people — section 147, subsection 3 of the Electoral Act 1993 requires the publication of "the names of the political party’s list candidates in the political party’s order of preference (up to a maximum of 65 candidates)" by local returning officers, and subsection 5 refers back to that bit when talking about the Electoral Commission's mail-outs — see here. Perhaps it would still be good to get something directly from the Electoral Commission, though — I'm hardly an expert at interpreting electoral law. -- Vardion (talk) 01:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I hope that there is some 'official' way to get the whole list, rather than the first 65. You might predict (perhaps rather optimistically), on current polling, that National would get 67 MPs in the next parliament. The only place I can find the official party list for National gives no indication of who those last two candidates would be, which is decidedly odd. Ridcully Jack (talk) 01:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List Queries

Is the list for each now as given on the official party lists (though this will be up to No 65 only for Labour and National?). So the intro para should now be amended. And is Barry Brill, No 31 on the ACT list, the former National minister and MP for Kapiti? NB: on the official lists it is now the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, so alphabetically No 2 party after ACT (not the Legalise Cannabis Party). Hugo999 (talk) 03:35, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, good spotting with Brill - apparently it is him [1]. Mattlore (talk) 03:47, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As far as we can understand it, parties can submit lists of more than 65 candidates to the Electoral Commission, but only the first 65 are listed in the information packs sent out to voters (which makes sense I guess) and similarly on their website (which makes considerably less sense). I've asked the Electoral Commission, via their website, where a voter might see the rest of the parties' lists, but have yet to have a reply. Ridcully Jack (talk) 06:27, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]