Constituency Campaign Intensity and Split-Ticket Voting: New Zealand's First Election Under MMP,1996

Abstract

New Zealand's first MMP general election in 1996 witnessed a large proportion of the electorate splitting their votes. This varied very substantially across the 65 constituencies, and estimating procedures have been used to show similar variations in the proportions of those who voted a straight-ticket and those who split their tickets between different party combinations. It is hypothesised that some of this variation was related to the intensity of the campaigns for constituency votes. The candidates' returns on election spending are used as a measure of this intensity, and regression analyses provide strong support for the hypothesis. In general, the more that candidates spent, the better their performance relative to that of their party (and the poorer their opponents' performance).