The huge spending differences shows that the impact of money on outcomes is weak at best. Many parties got more votes than parties that spent more than them. Those who say we need to restrict donations or spending have no empirical evidence that there is a problem.

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Kiwiblog is the personal blog of David Farrar. I set it up in July 2003 after several months of getting addicted to reading other blogs. Prior to blogging, I used to participate in Usenet Internet newsgroups,...