Unlike US, here in NZ we have options

With the United States presidential election less than two weeks away, the discussion and debate from the candidates and the public is intensifying.

But most of what is discussed about the two candidates, particularly here in New Zealand from my experience, is their respective faults rather than their virtues.

For the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, the focus is on his gaffes, his (apparent) misrepresentation of the facts, and (lately) his social conservatism.

For President Barack Obama, the focus is on his unfulfilled promises, his lack of economic progress over the past four years, and his alleged mismanagement of affairs in the Middle East.

To be blunt, for many of us deciding whom we would like to see as the President of the United States is like choosing whether to watch The GC or Ridges on television it really is a matter of deciding which is the least bad option.

But the beauty of the New Zealand political system is that we have other options; if we don't like the primary candidates we can vote for Russel Norman and Metiria Turei through the Green Party or John Banks through the Act Party (and before I get any more letters to the editor lambasting my "bias", I should make clear that was not a political recommendation of any kind).

MMP enables us to vote for an alternative candidate and our vote actually matters.

A vote for the Maori Party is a vote for greater Maori representation in Parliament. A vote for NZ First is a vote for greater economic illiteracy in Parliament. Put simply, if we vote for someone other than the two main parties, our vote will have some sort of effect on the make-up of Parliament.

The nature of the Electoral College and the state-by-state system of voting that exists in the US means there are really only ever the two main parties who are represented (the Democrats and Republicans). As a result, someone wanting to see the influence of Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate in the US, cannot express that in the way of a vote which has any material effect on the distribution of power in the House of Representatives or Senate. The Libertarian Party could hypothetically win 10 per cent of the vote in every state but still get no representation in government.

That seems intuitively undesirable and it is a virtue of the New Zealand political system that alternative options are real and effective.

We can also thank our lucky stars that politics in New Zealand is not so influenced by extreme religious ideology as to be downright bizarre. We can be thankful we don't have high-profile regional candidates that make comments like those of Todd Aiken (the Senate candidate for Missouri), who said in August that in the case of "a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down".

This week another Republican Party Senate candidate (for Indiana), Richard Mourdoch, tried to justify preventing abortion for rape victims on the grounds that "even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that is something that God intended to happen".

Absurd and offensive comments like that are frequent in the US political world, but less so here in New Zealand.

And while things aren't perfect in New Zealand politics, let's just continue to look to the example of America to remind ourselves of how much worse they really could be: Donald Trump this week again attempted to question the legitimacy of Barack Obama's American nationality and thus presidency. Seriously, he announced this week that he would donate $5million to a charity of Obama's choosing if he handed over his "college records and applications, and passport application and records".

That is despite Obama already having released his long-form birth certificate to prove his American nationality in the face of Trump's speculative attempts to undermine the President.

So when we complain about Kim Dotcom or John Banks, let's take a moment to be thankful that we're not complaining about Donald Trump or Richard Mourdoch.

James Penn is deputy head boy at Wanganui High School and captain of the New Zealand secondary schools debating team.