NZ 2014 election by Ethan Ng

Ethan Ng

21 September 2014

Election

Our election that happens every 3 years is one of the most important things in New Zealand. You get a say in who will represent you in Parliament. And, you get a say in what policies you want.

The requirements for voting are that you:

1) Are 18 or older,

2) Have been living in NZ for 1 year or more at one point of your life

3) Are a NZ citizen, OR Are a NZ permanent resident.

In the election, you get 2 votes. The first vote is the party vote. It largely decides how many seats the party gets in the Parliament. Whoever, in your region (electorate) wins the second vote becomes the local MP. 

Here are some of the parties:

National

Labour

Greens

New Zealand First

Conservative

Maori

Act

Internet

Here are some of the winners in Christchurch(Candidate vote) for this election which was held on 20 September 2014. 

Christchurch Central-National

Christchurch East-Labour

Epsom-ACT

Ilam-National

Wigram-Labour

In my electorate, Ilam, the incumbent MP from National won the seat. The below is the chart of electorate votes for Ilam. 

Overall, National won with 48.1% of the party votes. Here is one of the policies that National made.

Education- Higher wages for teachers and use $350million to build 9 new schools in Auckland and 130 new classrooms in existing schools.

Some facts

The non-voting percentage this election was 23%.

700,000 people voted in advance.

Merrin school was a voting station!