Election Broadcasting Allocations

The Electoral Commission has announced its allocations of broadcasting money and time for the 2005 election.

I am not surprised Labour got more than National, when you consider the 2002 election result. However they do seem to have erred when they claim Labour has a higher membership than National. I estimate National has four times as many ordinary members as Labour. Labour include the union affiliated members who get no say on an individual level as to whether they join or not, and the Electoral Commission should not have included them as an indication of broad-based support. However I suspect the 2002 election result and the polls were the major factors.

The full funding figures are here.

UPDATE: Frog has his/her/its analysis. I partly agree that NZ First and Greens could have been given more than parties such as UF who are polling at 1%, but I think the EC very much likes to avoid controversy. One aspect of Frog’s analysis should be commented on though. The no of MPs criteria and 2002 party vote criteria are generally identical proportionally, except with defections or by-elections, so giving two thirds of the weighting to them is somewhat unfair. Personally I would have treated them as one third, polls as one third and estimated membership numbers based on public speculations.