The Effects of Proportional Representation on Election Lawmaking: Evidence from New Zealand

ABSTRACT It is widely recognised that politicians are self-interested and desire election rules beneficial to their re-election. Although partisanship in electoral system reform is well-understood, the factors that affect partisan manipulation of other democratic ‘rules of the game’ – including election administration, franchise laws, and campaign finance – has received little attention to date. New Zealand is so far the only established democracy to shift from a non-proportional to a proportional electoral system and thus presents an ideal case to test the effects of electoral system change on the politics of election reform. This article examines partisan and demobilising election reforms passed between 1970 and 1993 under first-past-the-post and between 1997 and 2020 under mixed-member proportional representation. Moving to a proportional system has failed to diminish the amount of partisan election lawmaking, though voting restrictions have become less common. These results should caution against claims that reforming a country’s electoral system will necessarily curtail the passage of normatively undesirable election reforms.