The final word

The final results of the second referendum on the NZ flag were released yesterday, and the result was exactly the same: 43.2% voted for change, and 56.6% voted to keep the colonial flag. The absolute numbers for all categories went up, but they didn’t change the outcome at all.

All up, 2,140,895 votes were received, of which 2,135,622 were valid voted (and 5,044—a mere 0.2%—were invalid). This means that 67.8% of enrolled voters actually voted, which is a pretty good voter turnout, and awesome for a postal ballot.

Although I was disappointed in the result, I wasn’t in any way surprised: After such an awful “debate” there was no way the alternative flag would get a fair chance at replacing the colonial flag. However, the high voter turnout (relative to other postal ballots) means that this is a relatively sound result; had a minority of voters bothered to post their ballots back, the result could have been illegitimate.

At the end of February 2016, 92.35% of eligible voters were actually enrolled to vote. Under New Zealand law, it is mandatory that all eligible voters register to vote, but I’m not aware of anyone ever being penalised for failing to do so. Also, for a variety of reasons (such as moving house), there will always be some eligible voters who cannot be registered for a particular election.

What this means is that the actual voter turnout was about 62% of eligible voters. So, the vote to keep the colonial flag was 35% of eligible voters and the vote to change the flag was 27% of eligible voters. This is only something of interest to politics nerds because—obviously!—the only votes that matter are those actually cast, but it fascinates me how much difference those unregistered voters make to overall vote totals (and, the current flag still won a plurality of the vote among eligible voters—just not an outright majority).

Some people are still bleating on about this, either advocating how the push for change could be moved forward, or continuing to push ideological barrows, or continuing to micro-analyse the supposed reasons for the failure of the alternative flag, or some combination of these. Me, I’m just glad it’s over, and as much as I want to see a new flag, I hope it's something we don't revisit for a very, very long time.

AmeriNZ Podcast 320 is now available

A new AmeriNZ Podcast episode, “AmeriNZ 320 – Nine Years” is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast.

This episode is less than five minutes long, and is just because I wanted to mark the fact that I've now been doing the AmeriNZ Podcast for nine years. How time flies!

No one knows, end of story

In the aftermath of the “debate” on changing the New Zealand flag, there’ve been all sorts of declarations on social media about what the results mean. Invariably, these declarations are all based entirely on the ideology, personal beliefs, prejudices, and even wishful thinking of the people making the declarations, because when it comes to saying why people voted as they did, there’s only one truth: No one really knows.

It’s important to note first that social media has very little connection to real-life voting behaviour—if it did, then Red Peak would be the new flag of New Zealand. Instead, it came in third in First Preferences in the first flag referendum, and was eliminated entirely in the third count. Social media also told us that “masses” of people would spoil their ballots in protest, but it ended up being less than10% of the total in either the preliminary or final results of the first referendum, (and insignificant in the second). The point is, one must take unsupported opinions on social media with considerably more than a single grain of salt (though saying “a salt mine” is overstating it a bit).

The most common comment I’ve seen has been about how the Māori electorates voted overwhelmingly against change. Some have claimed that Māori voters love the current flag, others that Māori voters felt left out of the process, or resented the alternative because it didn’t have Māori symbology. It’s probable that any/all of those things may have been at play for at least some Māori voters.

However, it's equally possible that Māori voters, like plenty—perhaps most—of all voters cast a protest vote, maybe against the selection system, maybe against the cost, maybe against John Key personally, maybe ALL of these things. The problem we have is that because there's been virtually no attitudinal polling, as usual, we really have no idea why anyone voted as they did. That's goes doubly for Māori voters who are generally not polled specifically at any time.

UMR Research polled twice on the issue of the flag change, and found little difference in their second poll, indicating that most voter intention was consistent. While they didn’t get the final vote percentages correct, their margin was close—and much closer than others I saw in February. Back then, most polls had the alternative design losing by nearly 3 to 1, while UMR’s was roughly 2 to 1. In the end, of course, it was much closer.

UMR also suggested—correctly, I think—that those most likely to change their vote would be among the 20% of respondents who said they planned on voting for the current flag, but who agreed with the statement, "in principle I would like to change the flag but I just do not like the alternative.” It looks like some of those may have indeed switched, and the undecided may have mostly gone for change, thereby tightening the margin.

UMR released more detailed vote analysis than any other pollster, which gives us some idea of who was voting which way, and it gave us some insight into why. For example, they reported that two-thirds of respondents agreed with the statement, “The flag referendum has been a distraction and a waste of money. New Zealanders should send John Key a message by voting for the current flag.” 79% of younger voters agreed with that statement, UMR said, as well as that they are “more likely to be Labour and Green voters than the population as a whole” (though they didn’t release specific data to back up that statement).

Adding all that up, we know quite a lot about the stated intentions of voters aligned with various party affiliations, voters in various age bands, and male and female voters—but we know nothing whatsoever about voting intentions of people in different races/ethnicities or economic classes. This data may have been recorded but not included in what was already very complicated reporting, but maybe it wasn’t even sought.

In the absence of such publicly available data, we have no idea why voters in Māori Electorates voted so overwhelmingly for the current flag. We can draw inferences based on what was reported—such as what I’ve highlighted, and also the fact that Labour Party supporters backed the current flag 73% to 19%, and Māori voters have in the past strongly supported Labour—but those are only inferences, albeit ones at least based on publicly available data.

It seems to me that some opponents of change may have been trying to make a moral justification for what was a largely political decision made by many opponents to “send John Key a message”. That desire for justification is completely understandable, and it happens all the time in all elections and (maybe especially) referenda. But assertions made without evidence are nothing more than opinions. I can’t prove that my assertion about their motivation any more than they can prove their assertions about why Māori voters voted as they did.

The “debate” on changing New Zealand’s flag was truly awful (a topic in itself), and in the post-vote analysis we shouldn’t allow unsupported personal viewpoints to continue to squeeze facts out. I offer no opinion on why the Māori Electorates (or any other ones) voted as they did because facts matter, and I simply don’t have any beyond what polls were showing. I think we all need to be careful about reading the results as validation of a particular perspective we may hold when we have absolutely no way to prove we're correct.

Why did voters vote the way they did? No one knows, end of story.

The winner is: Status quo

The preliminary results of the second and final New Zealand flag referendum were released tonight, and the current colonial flag won handily: 56.6% against change and 43.2% for change (see graphic above; click to embiggen). The final result may vary a bit, but probably not very much. So, that’s that—there will be no change to New Zealand’s flag for many years—or probably decades—to come.

The whole debate was the worst I’ve ever seen on any public referendum, and ended up mostly being about how much people disliked John Key. It was comparable to a referendum on compulsory retirement savings held in the late 1990s that people used to express their disapproval of Winston Peters, his New Zealand First party, and even MMP itself. So, this is nothing new.

I doubt very much that we’ll ever get another chance to vote on a new flag, either because it’ll happen decades from now when I’m well gone, or because a future government, seeing how awful this process was, will just impose a new flag on us, Canadian style. Any future referendum would be every bit as fraught as this fight was, something no politician would gladly push for until sometime well in the future when and—only if—public opinion is solidly for change, whenever that may be.

Still, voters of New Zealand voted in this referendum in respectable numbers—roughly 2.1 million voters returned their ballots, and the result tonight is roughly 67.3% of registered voters—dramatically higher than the percentage that will vote in the local government elections later this year. So, in that sense, we must respect the result—which isn’t the same as agreeing with it, of course.

I’ll have more to say next week when the official results are announced, and I’m free to say what I really think. In the meantime, I’m disappointed, yes, and even more so that the anti-change crowd are still engaging in their insufferable condescension when, just maybe, a little high road behaviour might now be appropriate; if there was anything other than gloating and point-scoring, I didn’t see it.

Still, there’s one thing that all factions in this fight can agree on: We’re glad it's over. After all, there are so many more important things for the New Zealand public to focus on, like which woman will have to leave “The Bachelor NZ” next!

AmeriNZ Podcast 319 is now available

A new AmeriNZ Podcast episode, “AmeriNZ 319 – From Overseas” is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast.

Latest NZ Flag Referendum TV ads

Above and below are the latest—and probably last—TV ads intended to get people to vote in the NZ Flag Referendum. Voting closes on Thursday, March 24 (because Friday the 25th is a public holiday).

The ad up top, “Got Your Papers?” was telling people how to get voting papers if they hadn’t yet arrived. I first saw (and shared it) on Facebook on March 13, though it had been posted by the Electoral Commission a couple days before. I may have seen it that night, but Iknow for sure I saw it the next day. The ad replaced the first ad, which had been running since the beginning of March.

The third ad, “Made Up Your Mind?”, which may be the last new ad, is below. It’s reminding voters to post their ballots by Monday to get to the Returning Officer on time. I first saw this ad on Facebook today (it was originally posted late last night), and later on TV when I was watching the midday news.

I always share Electoral Commission ads because they’re interesting, and also because I know others will think so, too—particularly those in other countries where this sort of advertising isn’t done. However, both ads were posted on the Electoral Commission’s YouTube Channel today (I’ve been checking frequently). That’s why both ads are in this one post: The earlier ad wasn’t available on YouTube until the newest one was.

Having said that, so far the Electoral Commission has kept most of its ads and videos from elections and referenda over the past few years. I wish it kept all of them posted because they’re a great resource when researching how democracy is done in contemporary New Zealand. But, at least we have them while we have them, I guess; I have no idea whether they’re kept in any sort of archive anywhere, but TVNZ may have the ads, since they ran on the network. If so, researchers may be able to get to them.

For the first referendum, there was a final ad (which is still on YouTube), announcing the end of voting. For some bizarre reason, I never shared it here (“bizarre” because I share such ads and because I really needed content back in December). There may be a similar one for this referendum, but it also wouldn’t surprise me with voting closing on Thursday. But, if there is a final ad, this time I WILL share it here.

From the other side

When I shared the videos supporting changing the NZ flag, I said I’d share any ads supporting the current flag “if possible”. Well, a few can be shared, and here they are in all their glory.

To say I’m not a fan of these videos would be a huge understatement, and not just because I take the opposite position: I think the first two are utterly terrible, both as advocacy ads and even just ads in general. Nevertheless, I did promise to share what I found, and these are all I’ve seen so far.

First up is the video at the top of this post, “The Letter . Keep Our Flag‬”, with that weird full-stop in the middle of the title. I don’t know if it was meant to go after “letter” or if it was to be a bullet separating the two parts. As someone who confronts others’ typography sins all the time, this made the video get off to a bad start with me.

The content is abysmal, hitting viewers with overly wrought sentimentalism with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Emotion and sentimentalism both can work very well in political advertising, but it works best when its restrained and at least a little subtle: The narrator reads a letter to her dead father who was a soldier as a choir sings the NZ national anthemion the background, and the current flag flutters away as the visual. My first reaction was that it was unbelievably smarmy, but then I realised that it seemed unable to decide which point to promote as a reason to vote for the current flag/against the alternative. The ad could have made an appeal to patriotism (a risky move in NZ, though), or facts, but muddling them together was jarring.

I have no idea who made the ad up top, but it was on the YouTube Channel of a New Zealand documentary maker who, somewhat ironically, was condemned by the ruling conservative National Party for a documentary he’d made on child poverty in New Zealand that was aired just before the election. If he made “The Letter”, it seems a bit out of character, and not up to his usual standards.



The next video, just above, is “Lest We Forget : The Real Flag HD- Read By Ian Mune‬” (again with the weird punctuation spacing!). It’s actually the first pro-current flag video I saw. The documentary maker said on YouTube, “I was sent this moving recording of Ian Mune OBE reading the poem Lest We Forget-a tribute to our flag. So I thought I'd post it so you can share it with your friends and family in the lead up to the flag referendum.” It was posted on February 22, but I didn’t see it until the past few days. This video is even worse than the one up top.

Ian Mune is a well-known New Zealand actor (he was, of course, in Lord of the Rings…). To my mind, there’s nothing more boring than watching someone read a script, however, fans of the current flag would probably like it, and that’s fine: Everyone has different tastes. However, as an advocacy video it’s an utter failure, unable to make its case in a way that could persuade. Personally, I find the poem awfully twee, not “moving” in any sense whatsoever—unless me rolling my eyes at the banality of it counts as “moving”. Again, differing tastes, and all that.

In fairness, I doubt very much that “Lest We Forget” was ever intended as an ad—it was probably just intended for those who’d already made up their minds to vote for the current flag, which is fair enough: There’s no reason why supporters of the current flag shouldn’t have some “feel good” messages. But if it was intended to win over people, it failed miserably in that role.

The reason I include the second video is because of the next video, below: “Lest we forget the New Zealand flag”. The guy who made it said, “I found the original video of him to be so moving that I put some pictures and music (points if you can pick it) to it.”



This video is too long for a TV ad, of course, but as an advocacy video, it’s actually good—the only decent pro-current flag ad I’ve seen so far. It takes that dreary and twee poem read by Ian Mune and adds a simple music score as wells as images that illustrate what the poem was talking about (some of which could be useful for non-New Zealanders who see it, especially if they saw the original first).

The use of the images was particularly good—not relying merely on patriotic images alone as the first video did. New Zealanders are not an overtly patriotic people, so mixing the visuals appealing to patriotism with others makes the appeal to patriotism much more subtle, and that, in turn, helps keep the emotionalism and sentimentality more subtle and controlled, as they should be for an advocacy ad to be effective. However, I do have one criticism: The music track was too loud, and that created some aural confusion that was distracting. On the whole, though, a good job.

I saw all three videos before I voted, and, obviously, none of them persuaded me, which probably wasn’t their aim. However, of the three, only the last one had any chance of persuading someone who was truly undecided and who also cared about voting (those don’t necessarily go together). I doubt that anyone would be persuaded by any of the ads for or against change, though, because I just don’t think most New Zealanders care all that much about the referendum.

We still have a couple more weeks of voting to go.

AmeriNZ Podcast 318 now available

A new AmeriNZ Podcast episode, “AmeriNZ 318 – Old School” is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast.

A day of democracy

Yesterday was a day of democracy, though it started out as an ordinary Tuesday. My mother-in-law stayed with us on Monday night, and we were going out to lunch at a great Japanese restaurant in Birkenhead, right near the Postshop. That made it the perfect day to pop my ballots in the post.

First, though, I had to vote.

First up was my postal ballot for the second New Zealand Flag Referendum. The unmarked ballot is up top. I’ve made clear how I intended to vote, and I did as I promised: I voted to change the flag. Unlike others, though, I decided not to do a photo of the marked ballot.

Next up, it was my ballot for the Illinois Democratic Primary (left). I vote for my choice for Democratic nominee for President, for US Senator from Illinois, US Representative from the district I last lived in (not visible in the photo; she was unopposed), and also seven delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

It’s actually a violation of Illinois law to show a marked ballot, so mine is blank—but that would have been my photo, anyway: For the first time in my adult life, I’ve decided to not talk about who I voted for. That’s because whatever choices I made (president and delegate), some would be delighted and some would not, and I just don’t care to fuel any division by revealing my choices (at least, not at the moment—I might change my mind). The position of my hand and pen in the photo is NOT a clue, by the way: I was merely trying to show the moment of decision approaching.

I put my voting papers in their respective envelopes, and off we went. We had an awesome lunch, and a nice, relaxing time. When we were done, I went off to post my ballots while my mother-in-law checked out the used books in the nearby opshop.

On my way into the Postshop, I popped my flag referendum ballot into the box. Here’s the obligatory photo of that:

Next, I went inside to get the postage for the US ballot, since I had to send it airmail. It’d actually be free to send if I took it to the US Consulate in the CBD, but that’s more hassle than it’s worth. As it happens, it was only $3.60 to post (today, around US$2.43), which I didn’t think was too bad.

I left with the envelope with the proper NZ postage on it, and headed to the letterbox for airmail. Below is the obligatory photo of me posting that ballot:

And that was my day of democracy. I had to document it because, of course, I always do, and also because it’s the first time I can remember voting in two countries’ elections on the same day. Sometimes being an expat can be a bit odd.

But voting is always important—and fun. And, so was yesterday.

Voting opens tomorrow

Voting in the New Zealand Flag Referendum opens tomorrow, and today the Electoral Commission aired the first ad (video above) reminding New Zealanders of that fact. If the first referendum is any guide, there will be one or two more before voting closes March 24.

The Electoral Commission didn’t run any voter registration reminder ads this time, which surprised me a little. I did think, though, that since there was so little time since the first referendum, the number of unregistered voters they might get signed up might not have been enough to justify the cost of advertising. As it happens, some news media outlets reminded people several times that the deadline was approaching.

The only other ad that’s been running on TV so far is the impartial ad from the Flag Consideration Project promoting awareness of the referendum in general terms. No advocacy ads have been on TV yet, though now that voting is open some may air.

Tomorrow is the first day our voting papers can arrive in the mail (we get mail on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday).

Vote for Change

The video above, “A flag by New Zealand, for New Zealand” is the long version ad made by Change The Flag NZ, which is, as far as I know, the only campaign in favour of changing the New Zealand flag in next month’s referendum. Neither it nor the shorter versions have been on TV yet, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be.

The ad features some well-known New Zealanders from various walks of life, including journalists, two former Prime Ministers (from the National Party), two Mayors of Wellington, the former Mayor of Christchurch, former All Black Dan Carter, among others. A much shortened television-friendly 15-second version, "Vote For Change", is below, and another 15-second version is on their Facebook Page, but not on YouTube yet.

As such commercials go, I think these are pretty good, though this sort of thing doesn’t usually persuade anyone. Instead, they tend to rally people who already feel inclined to do the thing asked, in this case, voting for change. Even so, there’s value in that.

The mockery of the new flag and those who support change has been pretty relentless on social media, so ads like this may help rally some of the pro-change vote, something that almost certainly will be higher than polls indicate at the moment. Right now, polls are showing the existing flag with overwhelming support, but much of that looks to be soft support from people who intend to use the referendum to “send a message to John Key” (more about that tomorrow).

I’m voting for change, of course, but if the pro-existing flag side makes ads, I’ll share them, too, if possible. That figures, of course: I’m a political junkie and politics nerd WAY more than I’m a partisan in elections or referenda. Even so, because we’ll only have about three weeks of campaigning, there aren’t likely to be a lot of ads for either side.

There’s one thing I do agree with the majority about, though: Whatever happens, I’ll be glad when this is all over.

AmeriNZ Podcast 317 now available

A new AmeriNZ Podcast episode, “AmeriNZ 317 – Progress-ish” is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast.

Flag Referendum 2: First ad – ‘It’s Time to Decide’

Above is first TV ad for the second (and final) NZ Flag Referendum. “The people of New Zealand have a unique opportunity to decide the future of our flag,” it says. The new ad is very similar to the ad for the first referendum, but, obviously, with only the two final designs and different narration.

I saw the ad on TV about a week ago, but it wasn’t posted on YouTube until February 10, and I didn't see that until this weekend—but then I forgot to share it here. There’s been a lot going on!

When I first saw the ad, I was a little disappointed. I don’t what I expected, but something different. Since then, however, I’ve thought about it and realised that keeping the ads similar is the best way to stay neutral, as this ad should be.

Still to come will be ads from the Electoral Commission promoting “register to vote” (I’m assuming they’ll run those), plus ads telling people how to vote, what the deadlines are, and so on. Basically, the same as for the first referendum, but updated.

I have no idea whether there will be any independent campaign ads; certainly I haven't head that any groups are saying they plan to advertise, but that doesn’t mean that none will, of course. With the current flag well out in front in the polls, I doubt that opponents of change will see any need to advertise. I also don't know that anyone feels strongly enough about changing the flag to organise—and pay for—an ad campaign. Maybe there will be newspaper ads, though I’m unlikely to see them unless someone shares them on social media.

Voting in the final Flag Referendum will be by postal ballot and conducted March 3 to 24.

I’m voting for change.

AmeriNZ Podcast 315 now available

A new AmeriNZ Podcast episode, “AmeriNZ 315 – Birthdays” is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast.

This is the second podcast episode in two weeks!

What the flags mean

The latest video from the Flag Consideration Project, above, tells us about the symbolism of both the current New Zealand Flag and the alternative silver fern flag design that will be in the referendum in March. It’s a useful video.

In the course of the flag debates, I’ve run across plenty of people who are absolutely convinced that the silver fern is nothing but a symbol for the All Blacks. When told that it’s on all the tombstones of New Zealand soldiers lying in war graves overseas, such people deal with that fact by simply ignoring it. This video underscores how the silver fern has been a symbol of New Zealand since long before the All Blacks ever existed.

The current flag is a creation of New Zealand’s colonial past and cements the country as a colony of the British Empire. That the story in the symbolism, particularly for the Southern Cross, evolved doesn’t change the fact that the flag of the nation of New Zealand is basically the flag of the colony of New Zealand.

Partly because of that, the colours are important. The brighter blue of the silver fern design furthers the break from the country’s colonial past made most noticeable by removing the United Kingdom’s Union flag and adding the silver fern symbol of New Zealand. Yet the red and white of the Southern Cross stars—the only part of the original flag to remain unchanged—unites this new flag with the current one, and even nods toward the British flag’s red and white elements.

This video is too long to be a commercial, and being a web video, I don’t know how many people will actually see it. That’s a shame, because to make a considered choice between the two flags, it’s important to know what the symbolism means and refers to. For the same reason, it’s also important to understand both the history of the current flag, and of the silver fern as a symbol of New Zealand.

In any case, this could be an interesting couple of months.

The final flags

The video above shows the final two flags that will face off in the second flag referendum in March. It was posted on YouTube the day the final results of the first referendum were announced. And that is how the publicity for the second referendum began: With barely a whisper.

This, of course, makes perfect sense: The results were finalised only ten days before Christmas, and everyone was too busy with holiday plans to take any notice—including me, of course, because I didn’t notice until last night, and even then only because YouTube included videos from the Stand For NZ YouTube Channel among my “suggested for you” videos. This lack of attention during summer holidays is also why advertising won’t start any time soon—no one will be paying any attention.

As with the first referendum, we’ll probably first see TV ads promoting voter registration for the second referendum. Then, the informational ads will start. It’ll be interesting to see if there are any TV ads promoting one flag or the other.

One thing I’ve noticed is that there’s been an increase in people flying the New Zealand flag (so far, I’ve only seen one house flying the alternative, and they were before the first referendum, too). However, that’s not a huge number—it would be exaggerating to say I’ve seen a dozen houses within a ten minute drive of our house flying any flag, and of them only maybe four would have been added since the referendum debate began. Maybe we’ll see more when the final referendum debate actually begins.

New Zealanders aren’t overtly patriotic by nature, certainly nothing like the over-the-top and sometimes jingoistic nationalism of Australians or Americans, so seeing individuals flying the flag is unusual. I think New Zealanders’ low-key patriotism is great, but maybe a few private flags flying would be nice, too.

In any case, the actual debate for the second referendum is still a while away yet, and so are the informational ads. That’s good: Even I’m ready to pay attention yet.

Below are the videos of the final two flags flying alone: First is, of course, the current New Zealand flag. The video was posted before the final results, which makes sense, since its presence in the second referendum was a given. Below that is the challenger, Kyle Lockwood’s “Silver Fern (Black, White and Blue)”, the design I’ll be voting for in March. That video was posted as part of the information campaign for the first referendum.

The NZ flag referendum explained

The video above was posted a couple weeks ago, thought I only saw it tonight. It’s a very accurate description of the referendum and the process, and it’s also reasonably impartial, which is a plus. Naturally, YouTube commentators couldn’t leave it at that.

The first criticism was that it ripped off CGPGrey, whose videos I’ve shared many times because I’m a fan. The main complaint seemed to be the animated explanation of the preferential voting system used in the first flag referendum. This is a pretty silly criticism.

CGPGrey did a video on the Alternative Voting system, which is basically the same thing. I shared that video back in 2011 (bottom of the post). That video uses the metaphor of an election in the animal kingdom, as his other videos on electoral systems did, and also uses a very simplistic explanation of how the second round votes are distributed. This made it easier to understand, but created the impression that the second choice votes for an eliminated candidate always go to the same candidate. Still, it was a fair trade-off to explain how the voting system works in general terms,

The video above however, far more realistically and accurately shows the redistribution process, that the second preference votes are distributed among many candidates, not just to one. This is important to understand if one is to understand how we ended up with the flag design we did (and judging by online commentary, many New Zealanders don’t understand that). The use of fruits, by the way, is also the way the NZ Electoral Commission explains how our voting system works—fruit standing in for parties, or, in this case, for flag designs. It’s a way of avoiding apparent bias.

So, those parts are similar, but clearly different. And, the video above is actually more accurate. I can’t understand what people are complaining about.

Nevertheless, I do have criticisms and a few more minor quibbles.

My biggest criticism is that the narration says: “New Zealand has been independent for nearly 70 years”. That simply isn’t factually true, and for a number of reasons.

What he’s referring to is when the New Zealand Parliament adopted the Statute of Westminster, and, later, the British Nationality and New Zealand Citizenship Act 1948, which created New Zealand citizenship.

However, it’s also true that after New Zealand failed to join Australia, it became a Dominion, which was self-governing. It signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, and became a member of the ill-fated League of Nations, all alongside other independent nations. Then, in 1926, the Balfour Declaration made clear that all Dominions were equal, and so, ratified that New Zealand was in charge of its own foreign affairs, settling any earlier legal ambiguity.

Or, one could also look to the Third Labour Government of Prime Minister Norman Kirk, which passed the Constitution Amendment Act 1973 to make it clear that New Zealand could legislate outside its own territory, and the Royal Titles Act 1973 changed the Queen’s title to “Queen of New Zealand”, no longer mentioning the United Kingdom. Also, the government changed New Zealand passports to indicate the holder was a "New Zealand citizen", and no longer a "British Subject and New Zealand Citizen".

In 1973, the UK joined the Common Market, and ended all the preferential trade deals it had with New Zealand. So, 1973 began a sort of mutual separation.

The point is, New Zealand has no independence date because it evolved alongside the growth of national sovereignty. I realise that all this is difficult to explain in a few seconds, but to suggest that New Zealand DID had a firm date of independence and that it was “nearly 70 years ago” is both factually wrong (NZ has no independence date) and not even “kind of true”—it had a gradual evolution as an independent nation. That section should have been worded entirely differently, something like, “…however, New Zealand is an independent nation, a process that actually began back in 1840” (this, because he shows a representation of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi).

Other less serious problems are that while the narration talking about what New Zealanders thought about the cost, John Key’s involvement, and even how the referendum process should have been structured, are probably accurate or a fair assessment (in my opinion), it would have been better to source those comments. Rather than using “some people”, “many people” and so on, it would have been better to say “a poll found that a majority of New Zealanders felt that…”, or, at least, such a source should have been onscreen in that frame—or at the very least included in the description. This matters because things put to a vote are always contentious, and as I’ve already said many times, it’s not clear WHAT “most” New Zealanders felt about a great many aspects of this whole thing.

So, citing sources could have cleared that up.

There was one other thing that was flat out wrong: The pronunciation of Tuvalu is wrong—it’s actually “too-VAH-loo” (Fiji is also a bit dicey, but close enough).

My criticisms are substantiative, which appears to have been beyond the capabilities of some YouTube commenters who were fixating on what I think was trivial nonsense. I presume this was because they didn’t know the facts (and couldn’t be bothered to fact check), and assumed that one visual segment was too similar to something someone else did (even though the ONLY similarity is that both use easy-to-understand bar charts!).

Despite my criticisms and quibbles, I think this is a very good video. It explains the story so far more thoroughly and more clearly than any other video I’ve seen. It also does so without “taking sides”, which isn’t easy to do in itself.

All in all, a good job, I think.

AmeriNZ Podcast 313 now available

A new AmeriNZ Podcast episode, “AmeriNZ 313 – Results” is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast.

Now it’s final

Tonight the Electoral Commission released the final results of the first referendum on the alternative design for the New Zealand flag. Although it could have changed from the preliminary results, it didn’t—if anything, it reinforced the choice of New Zealand voters.

The results (image below) show that voters’ choice for one of the Kyle Lockwood designs was not only firm right up until the very end, it actually grew. This means that at least one of his designs was the choice of voters all the way through. The other designs also improved their support, but didn’t gain anywhere near enough to challenge the most popular designs.

The reality is that that the bottom three designs combined had less than half the support on first preferences of either Kyle Lockwood design, and it only got worse from there. That’s despite all the hype before and sour grapes since, it’s worth noting.

The people who hated the Kyle Lockwood designs before, hate them as much or more now. Maybe they can’t understand how they got it so wrong, but I well know how easy it is to believe one’s own hype (I’ve been there!). Still, whether they choose to be negative and bitter is their own choice.

Voter turnout increased slightly from 48.16% to 48.78%. Informal votes—most likely protesting, well, something—actually decreased slightly from 9.7% to 9.68%, and invalid votes increased from 0.16% to 0.22%.

I’ll talk about my own choice more in future posts, but, for now, I’ll just reiterate that I’m okay with the result, and I will be voting for change. What others do is their choice.

The winning alternative

The results of the first flag referendum, released last night, show that there was far more engagement in this referendum than we had been led to believe there would be. It was also more evidence, as if any more was really needed, that scanning social media commentary is a really terrible way to understand what the general public thinks about elections or public issues.

Comments on social media were mainly pretty unpleasant, with people constantly mocking and dismissing designs they didn’t like. This was done by everyone, including me: Toward the end of the process, I often called the “Koru” design “monkey butt”, as many others did. It was the only design I mocked.

However, in the main, the snarky social media comments that I personally saw were far more numerous coming from the fans of Red Peak than any other design. This may have been because the design only got on the ballot because of a campaign waged online through social media, but whatever the reason, the importance of the pro-Red Peak chatter was clearly exaggerated.

As the results above [SOURCE] show, Red Peak was a pretty distant third on first preferences. In fact, the two Kyle Lockwood designs were far out in front from the very beginning, and the other three designs combined had considerably less than half the first preference votes of either Kyle Lockwood design.

My first preference—“Silver Fern (Red, White and Blue)”—was in the lead the first two rounds, and it was only in the third round that the eventual winner, “Silver Fern (Black, White and Blue)” pulled in front, but only by some 5,000 votes. It eventually won on the fourth round with 50.53% of the votes to my choice’s 49.47%—a VERY close result.

The flag I that I ranked fifth—“Koru” was eliminated in the first round, which I felt was a good result. Although at first I thought the design was interesting, I grew to loathe it, and felt it by far looked the worst when hanging limp on a flagpole. Even so, it got more than 40% the number of first preference votes that Red Peak had.

I ranked Red Peak fourth. Unlike so many folks I read on social media, I just didn’t see anything special about it. The fact that it had a white chevron was interesting, but not in any way compelling to me.

There were two things that put me off the Red Peak design. First, I didn’t see anything representing New Zealand in that design—it could be for nearly any country. The truth is, the only thing connecting it to this country was the story made up for it. Second, the entire campaign for it felt manipulative, especially the campaign to get it on the ballot. I don’t like being manipulated, and I just couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all P.R. and spin, and for a design that just didn’t do anything for me.

I ranked “Silver Fern (Black and White)” third, even though I didn’t like it, simply because I liked it more than Koru (which isn’t much of a compliment…), and I wanted it ahead of Red Peak because of what I said in the previous paragraph. Together, it and Koru had more first preference votes than Red Peak had.

Now, what all this says is that New Zealanders who voted were overwhelmingly in favour of one of the Kyle Lockwood designs, and only a minority wanted Red Peak, and even smaller numbers wanted either of the other two designs. After months of constant hype about Red Peak, constant discussion on social media (and some mainstream media, too), RedPeak ended up in third place. This alone is why social media is such a terrible predictor of actual voter behaviour (as we should have learned from the last general election, or even the one before that…).

The preliminary results showed that 1,527,042 votes were received, including 148,022 informal votes (9.7%) and 2,476 invalid votes (0.16%). An informal vote was one in which it couldn’t be determined which design was the voter’s first preference. An invalid vote is one where the ballot itself cannot be processed, like if a voter made the QR code unreadable, their ballot had been replaced by a new ballot, and so on. There were more informal votes than Red Peak ended up with when it was eliminated.

Voter turnout was 48.16%, which is right in the middle of the turnouts for other recent postal ballot referenda: The 2013 referendum on asset sales had a turnout of 45.07%, and the 2009 smacking referendum had a turnout of 56.09%. Turnout is calculated by taking the total votes received as a percentage of the total number of voters enrolled. For this referendum, as at 19 November 2015, the date enrolment to vote in the first referendum closed, there were 3,170,726 enrolled voters.

Many people on social media claimed that they’d “spoil” their ballot, such as by putting an “X” in all five boxes, and they further claimed that such a huge number would do so that the eventual winner would only have a tiny number of votes. Others vowed to refuse to vote at all, so there'd be a tiny turnout. Social media got all that wrong, too.

In fact, the informals were quite high for this referendum, but, even so, it was less than 10% of the turnout, so I really don’t think it can be seen as any kind of “message” to John Key, about the process, or the desirability of keeping the current flag, particularly when there was no clear intent of people casting informal ballots, and it's impossible to know what reason(s) they had (apart, apparently, for negative feelings about something). However, we can see that the vast majority of people who voted took the process seriously and made their choices. This also suggests to me that the result of next year’s referendum is also not as sure a thing as many people have suggested.

Like many people, I believed the declaration that most voters will pick the current flag next year, even as I reminded myself that such polling was only speculative since there wasn’t yet one alternative design: Asking people to choose between the current known flag, and some hypothetical alternative couldn’t possibly produce reliable predictive data. Now that there’s one alternative, voters can make an actual choice about which flag they want, and I suspect the poll numbers will tighten up because of that.

The theme running through all of this is that, like so many other people, I was hoodwinked by social media. By pointing out how wrong it was, I hope to remind myself to never again pay any attention to it for elections, and to treat it as nothing more than entertainment.

Still, even with all this evidence of how lousy a predictor of voter behaviour social media truly is, there will be plenty of people who will continue to rely on it, as if the chatter they see and participate in actually means something—hint: It doesn’t, except as mere entertainment.

I must keep reminding myself of that fact—and so must we all.