New Zealand Election Results

The Results

Jacinda and the Labour Party had a stunning electoral victory on Saturday. It looks like they’ll have 64 of the 120 parliamentary seats and able to rule without a coalition, something that has never happened since the introduction of the MMP system in 1996. (I go over what this means in this post.) Three years ago when the Labour party took control, it only did so with a coalition with the Green Party and New Zealand First. This time around, New Zealand First didn’t even get enough votes to have any seats in parliament, and the Greens got about 7.6% of the vote and ten seats. This time around, a coalition with the Greens seems likely, but it isn’t a necessity to pass legislation.

Other parties in parliament include the National Party (26.8% of the vote and 35 seats) and the ACT party (8% of the vote and 10 seats). The Maori party picked up the last seat. All of the remaining parties - from New Zealand First at 2.7% of the vote to HeartlandNZ at .1% of the vote - are excluded from government for another three years. The results right now are preliminary and there are an additional 450,000 special ballots to count, but the results are unlikely to change much. Special votes include those from people who registered after September 13, prisoners on remand and those serving a sentence of less than three years, people who may not have been able to get to a voting place due to hardship or illness and chose someone to pick up their ballot for them, people who voted from outside their electorate, etc. There are ten additional days to submit special votes, so a final tally on everything won’t be for over a week.

The Turnout

The turnout for this election was outstanding. There were 2,381,472 regular ballots cast. Of these, 1,976,996 were votes placed before election day on October 17. With an anticipated 450,000 additional special viotes, that brings the total up to somewhere around 2.8 million. There are about 3.2 million registered voters and 3.7 million eligible voters - about 92%. This means the overall voter turnout was around 75% in the 2020 General Election. If you read this post, you know that I had a very easy time casting my votes. It was a quick, low tech process that made doing my civic duty as painless as possible.

Media Ban

One unique feature of the end of the election cycle in New Zealand, is that there is a media ban the day of the election. From 12:01 am to poll closing time at 7:00 pm, there is nothing on in the newspapers, online, on the airwaves, or other media sources that talks about the election. All of the candidates have to remove their signs and billboards from view as well. The idea is to give people an opportunity to quietly contemplate their decisions before casting a ballot.

And I. AM. HERE. FOR. THIS.

Muting the election frenzy - even just for a day - took away a good chunk of the emotion and insanity surrounding the results when they did come out. Saturday was a calm day. There weren’t people out on the streets or hounding people at polling stations. Everyone could go on with their day and check in (or not) when results started rolling in later in the evening. The breathing room was incredible. The country was civil and measured. It was a relief.

Referendum Outcomes

You may remember that there were two referendums on the ballot: legalising cannabis for recreational use and euthanasia. You may also remember that the ballots are low-tech. Literally a check mark in a bubble. The election commission is putting all of its energy into county the parliament ballots first and will start up on the referendum ballots after. Preliminary results for the referendum are expected on October 30 and final results on November 6. While I understand why things are done this way and I appreciate that there aren’t any voting machines that can be hacked, I wish they would go ahead and count all of the ballots. I mean, they managed to count over 2 million regular ballots in just a few hours. Why can’t they do that again?

So here’s to another three years under the Labour government. There will be some plusses: trust that the government will keep covid at bay as much as possible and a focus on environmental issues. There will be some cons: higher taxes and some moments of frustration that things aren’t getting done. But I’ll happily pay a little more to live in a country where I can live my life as normally a possible, don’t feel trapped into a perilous game of tribalism, and can enjoy one seriously high quality of life.