It is two months until the referendum, when everyone will get a chance to choose what electoral system they would like going forward. To do this, we all need to understand the nuts and bolts of the systems, the sorts of outcomes they will lead to, and what it means to be represented by politicians in Parliament. There is no perfect voting system. They all have pros and cons and prioritise different outcomes. Choosing a system involves understanding the different factors at play and making trade-offs between those factors, according to what each of us thinks is more or less important for New Zealand.

Maxim Institute has written a paper to help New Zealanders do this. Kicking the Tyres: Choosing a voting system for New Zealand looks at criteria that are helpful for assessing a voting system, identifying several important elements that fall under two main headings: how voting systems enable quality representation; and how they affect the workings of parliament and government. No system matches all criteria perfectly-in fact some criteria exclude each other. For example, a voting system that delivers an "effective government" that can do what it promised voters may not deliver strong "opposition and oversight" from competing, non-government parties. The criteria don't work like a simple tally, but they do help to understand the systems so that each voter can make a well-considered decision about what they think is best.

One of the main distinctions made between systems is to do with whether they are "proportional" or "majoritarian." Put simply-does parliament try to reflect the diverse range of interest groups in society through lots of interest group representation, or does it tend to have one party win a majority? No system is purely one or the other, but they all strike the balance in different ways, leading to very different outcomes and very different types of parliament.

Read Kicking the Tyres: Choosing a voting system for New Zealand

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