New Zealand

European Journal of Political Research -     

New Zealand

European Journal of Political Research -     

New Zealand

European Journal of Political Research -     

E-Government in New Zealand

Abstract

Although it has just 4 million people and an economy which is almost entirely based on agriculture, New Zealand has been nominated by the UN as the world's third most advanced in e-government.

That might surprise foreigners but not Kiwis, who have always had a rapid uptake of new technology. Leading the country into an electronic world is the E-Government Unit, which is charged with coordinating and integrating e-services across all government agencies. Some of the solutions are original but New Zealand has not hesitated to scour the world for best-of-practices solutions and modify them to its own environment.     

Election night forecasting in New Zealand

After an unsatisfactory 1981 attempt at a computerized prediction system on election night, Television New Zealand went into the snap 1984 election with an untried new procedure. The promise of that system has borne fruit in the 1987 election. This article describes the statistical methodology of the system and some of the results obtained on election night 1987. The procedure is based on biased sampling techniques and ratio estimation, and utilizes vote counts from selected indicator booths (key precincts) as its input. Accurate predictions for individual electorates are available thirty to forty minutes after the close of polls, and a nationwide prediction becomes available about fifteen minutes later.