Editorial: Vote on MMP made harder by the delay

The mixed-member proportional representation voting system will have been in use for 15 years when the first part of a potential two-stage referendum on it is held at next year's general election.

If that poll finds a majority of voters wanting a change, its fate will be decided at the 2014 election by a binding run-off against the most favoured of four other systems. That timetable means virtually a generation will have grown up knowing only MMP.

Even many of those who remember the first-past-the-post system, in place until 1996, will struggle to remember the finer points of the alternatives put to them when it was dropped. The electorate is hardly prepared for the 2011 referendum.

This raises several points. One is that MMP should, as intended, have been the subject of a referendum after two elections. Memories, especially of the unbridled power delivered to a single party under first-past-the-post, would have been relatively fresh. So, too, would knowledge of other options.

There was no poll, however. Instead, a review was done by a select committee. Unsurprisingly, given the presence of minor parties, it backed MMP.

The subsequent passage of years means the job of educating the public will be that much the harder. In particular, the intricacies of the three alternatives to MMP besides first-past-the-post - the preferential voting, single transferable vote, and supplementary member systems - will have to be explained.

Most of this education must be done before the first referendum because voters will be asked to name their preferred alternative to MMP at that stage. The most popular option will be pitted against MMP in 2014 if a majority votes to change to another system.

The Electoral Commission, which will run an information campaign, has a major task and relatively little time. At least, however, the job is in the right hands.

The commission, an independent body, should also have been in charge of matters such as the wording of the referendum questions. Regrettably, the Cabinet chose to reserve that for itself.

More happily, it has come up with phrasing that is suitably neutral. It has been less successful in opting for what seems like an unnecessarily protracted exercise.

There appears to be no reason the final referendum could not have been held a year or so after the 2011 general election if the first found a majority wanting change. A new system, if favoured in the decisive vote, could then be used in the 2014 election, rather than waiting as long as 2017.

The Green Party has criticised the Government's decision not to place limits on how much campaigners can spend. As always, it worries excessively about the funding available to the anti-MMP lobby and gives too little credence to the public's ability to discern a strong argument.

It would, in fact, be a surprise if MMP were replaced. After a rocky start, it has produced Governments that the electorate can recognise as an expression of its collective will.

In something of a reprise of the first-past-the-post days, it has also, without exception, rewarded the dominant party at every one of five elections.

Undoubtedly, there are aspects of MMP that irk people. Two of the more obvious are list MPs and the disproportionate influence of smaller parties.

Helpfully, the Government says that if MMP is retained, a review will be undertaken to see how it can be improved. This will be done, quite rightly, by the Electoral Commission.

At that point, irritating aspects of the system can be addressed. More immediately, the public must take a broader view and assess MMP against other electoral systems. The exercise will be the more onerous for being overdue.