The right has never met an electoral system that it did not want to rort.
And John Tamihere’s Te Pati Maori gave it the perfect excuse by explicitly running an electorate seat only campaign.
On last night’s results the election result is finely balanced.
Right now National has 42 seats including six overhang seats with 29.2% of the party vote while Labour has 36 seats with 29.4% of the party vote, the exact result that MMP was meant to do away with.
Things are however in the balance and a couple of electorate seats changing could make all the difference.
With the overhang every time National loses an electoral seat the net effect is two.
In Wairarapa Mike Butterick is just holding off Kieran McAnulty by 139 votes and in Hamilton East Ryan Hamilton is holding off Georgie Dansey by 456 votes.
My initial reaction is that the counting of special votes may help us in Wairarapa. Last time they favoured Butterick over McAnaulty by 316 votes. But if you factor in National’s party vote decline and Labour’s party increase this suggests McAnaulty may be able to carry the seat by 100 votes or so.
And in Hamilton East last time they favoured Hamilton over Dansey by 1,076 votes. Factoring in the party vote change as if this will represent the change in electorate votes still leaves Dansey behind.
The same approach suggests that in Nelson Rachel Boyack may be able to pare back the election night margin to 300 votes, not quite enough.
The counting of special votes will take some time, probably a similar time that it took last election.
This time however fewer will count. The result last time when National lost two seats and the Greens picked up one and Te Pati Maori will not happen again. There may still be movement but it will be more muted.
And we should then look at the total number of disallowed votes and wonder what could have happened if the real democratic will of the people had been met. And then reaffirm that this Government disenfranchised voters for political advantage.
I can confident say that it will take a similar amount of time for the Electoral Commission to declare a final result, but that more votes will be disallowed and that the loss of seats on the right will be more muted.
Out west we had a good night. Vanushi Walters won comfortably in Waitakere and Carmel Sepuloni and Phil Twyford returned Glendene and Henderson to traditional strongholds.
Elsewhere the result was patchy. In Whangarei Gary Payinda slashed National’s electorate vote by 10,000 votes.
In Wellington Bays Craig Renney is ahead of the Green’s Julie Anne Genter. He will be a welcome addition to the Labour Caucus if he hangs on.
One silver lining is the Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop are gone. I will not miss listening to Willis lecturing us on why left is bad and right is good.
At some stage there will be a review of Labour’s campaign and its small target strategy which always made me think about Keir Starmer in the UK. I do believe that we need full throated passionate progressive policies next time.
But hold onto your hats. McNaulty winning Wairarapa and the left picking up a seat or two on specials will make it interesting.
I'm not sure who this McNaulty fella is. Maybe you mean Kieran Michael McAnulty. Spelling a name correctly is always a good start in supporting someone.
[Fixed. I was up until 1 am last night tidying up the campaign party venue … MS]
Thanks, although you missed the last line of your post.
Many on the left said that the right were planning for exactly the sort of scenario that happened last night, despite the denials – National still in government but in a much weaker position – NZ First and ACT with virtually a free hand to gang bang New Zealand to their heart's content. Whatever their differences, the two thieves will find common cause in their delight to wreck what is left of decent NZ society.
So now potentially this country is in an even worse position than before – it that is at all possible. Our weak spineless Prime Minister will be even more weak and spineless. The dog has now grown two large tails and is wagging them very aggressively.
The only good things to come out of it last night were the success of the Greens and The Opportunity Party.
Election watchers are saying that things could change with special votes.
I don't believe it. I can surmise what is going to happen with special votes – a huge lot of them will be ruled invalid, new enrolment restrictions and an Electoral Commission that is under instructions from National will make sure that is what happens. It will be done in secret so we won't know how it is done. National have already made sure that the left are not going to gain from special votes.
The election bought with big money.
Our worst fears have happened, good luck for the next three years people, you will need it.
MMP can survive this gaming by moving to preferential voting in the electorate seats.
The left need to get smarter, the Greens should have campaigned to give electorate votes to Labour in marginal seats to stop National winning Nelson, Hamilton East and Wairarapa etc. And chance Winston will go with the left? I’m a Green voter but am prepared to swallow the NZ First rat to stop what will be a very very very destructive right wing government if they get in.
yes, but, GP didn't stand in Hamilton East.
Agree on Nelson
My guess is lot of Green vote went to McAnulty, the GP vote was only 2.7%
If you put someone on the ballot there will always be people who vote them. The solution is not to stand someone there. Interesting to see which seats the Greens didn't stand someone in. Both Labour and the Greens need a different strategy, but we also need to recognise that not standing in a seat lessens the change to campaign on the party vote.
https://www.sixtyone.nz/electorates/hamilton-east
https://www.sixtyone.nz/electorates/nelson
https://www.sixtyone.nz/electorates/wairarapa
https://www.sixtyone.nz/electorates/hamilton-east
Yes you are correct, Hamilton West would have gone to Labour without the Green candidate. Would STV in the electorate seats resolve the overhang issue?
Strategic voting happened in all the electorates you mentioned on both sides, and to fairly similar extents. It's always been a part of our MMP voting. We on left figure it out for ourselves, Epsom National voters needed to be shown how to read the tea leaves, and Don Brash and Harry Mowbray just figured it out after 30 years and thought they'd discovered eternal life.
Reality is we need to fix the design faults in our MMP system so any electorate strategising only affects that electorate, not subverts the whole election.
The important thing for this election is Opportunity Party getting their 5 conditions in return for C and S (especially on party donations).
Then on top of that blocking coalition legislation in parliament – they would be judged on what they let the coalition get through.
This would force the 2nd term hydra to talk to other parties on some issues.
On the special votes – an important detail may be how many of them will be party list only and not include electorates (the part of the rule changes that assisted the right wing overhang strategy)
While we're talking tactical voting and party strategy, if TPM had gotten 7 instead of 5 seats, the left would be a single seat from a hung parliament.
These two seats are a battle between Lab, TPM and Green
https://www.sixtyone.nz/electorates/te-tai-tonga
https://www.sixtyone.nz/electorates/ikaroa-rawhiti
The Greens not standing might have given the seats to TPM.
But it raises important issues around representation and democracy. Do we really want to work the board that way? What would that mean for people in those electorates?
So a big congratulations to the Green Party for their best result ever. What a great growing movement.
Also a huge grateful shoutout to all the lefties I've discovered in Waitaki. We'll be back and better than ever.