Knowledge of MMP still has gaps

After four MMP elections the public have a better understanding of how the system works, but still one third do not know the party vote is the most important in determining the make-up of Parliament.

The Electoral Commission yesterday released the latest in its ongoing survey of MMP knowledge showing the highest level of understanding since the first MMP election in 1996.

Commission chief executive Helena Catt said the results were pleasing in that this election could be taken with the highest levels of understanding since MMP was introduced.

In the survey of 3000 potential voters, 67 per cent correctly identified the party vote as more important than the electorate vote in deciding the numbers of MPs each party gets.

"Equally pleasing was finding that only a fifth think that MMP is hard to understand, a significant shift from the quarter saying the same thing last year," Dr Catt said.

Pacific people's understanding of MMP also improved by 14 percentage points with 70 per cent choosing the party vote as more significant compared to 69 per cent of New Zealand Europeans.

Despite this Pacific people were less likely to say they understood MMP than Europeans - 41 per cent compared with 60 per cent.

The number of people who knew that to get into Parliament a party had to win an electorate seat or 5 per cent of the vote was up 7 percentage points to 34 per cent.

Those who correctly identified the 5 per cent threshold but did not mention the electorate seat meant in total 53 per cent were either correct or close to getting it right.

- NZPA