Marcus quite correctly pointed out several inaccuracies in my earlier posting about the NZ election. I hope I haven't misled anyone. I intended to make it fairly plain in my posting that the information was top-of-my-head standard only (aside from the vote percentages, which were gleaned from perusing a copy of a fax from NZ's chief electoral officer). Probably the most egregious howler was labelling United as the Christian Right, followed closely by overlooking the high [near-threshold] vote for the Christian Coalition. Putting these two mistakes together, I think one explains the other! ie, I knew there was one conservative religious grouping somewhere on the electoral "grid", and matched it with the most obvious "blip" that I could find. Mixing up the post-1990 Liberals with the 1930s Liberals was erroneous but, I hope, understandable. Here in Australia our main conservative party has changed its title from Nationalist, to Liberal (or maybe that was vice versa), to United Australia Party in the 1920s, to Liberal Party again in the late 1940s. Thus sometimes history comes full circle, and simulates unbroken continuity, in matching party labels to ideologies. I promise to be more careful in future, but anyway, I hope Mike's questions are now amply answered! I am still digesting Mike's reply to my posting on Approval versus Instant Runoff and hope to reply later when I have more free time. Cheers Tom ------------------- Overflow-Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ('Geoff Powell'), [EMAIL PROTECTED] ('Andrew Freeman'), [EMAIL PROTECTED] ('Bogey M'), [EMAIL PROTECTED] ('Deane Crabb'), [EMAIL PROTECTED] ('Martin Dunn'), [EMAIL PROTECTED] ('Election methods'), [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Goode, Geoff), [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Pyke, QUT Law School), [EMAIL PROTECTED] ('John Taplin'), [EMAIL PROTECTED] ('Lee Naish'), [EMAIL PROTECTED] ('Martin Willis'), [EMAIL PROTECTED] ('Matthew Townsend')