Bloody overhang

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 McNaulty 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 McNaulty by 316 votes. But if you factor in National’s party vote decline and Labour’s party increase this suggests McNaulty 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.