Scoop’s Specials Calculator
September 22nd, 2005 at 7:07 am by David FarrarSccop has a nifty specials calculator done by Douglas Bagnall.
Heh if 100% of the specials are valid, and National wins 100% of them (where are Diebold voting machines when you need them) then National has 58 seats 
September 22nd, 2005 at 7:17 am
You are thinking too small – I suggest 9000% might be valid and you can have a landslide victory like they have in some places overseas!
Vote:September 22nd, 2005 at 7:55 am
If we lived in Zimbabwe we would have known the election result on Friday the 16th.
Vote:September 22nd, 2005 at 10:15 am
Gee I *am* dissappointed
I thought we did know the result on friday – Maori party gerrymander gives it to Labour.
perhaps you’re starting to accept reality after all – or are you hoping Holmes outing Peter will finally bring the Maori partyonside, or throw it to another election?
Vote:September 22nd, 2005 at 10:59 am
IF you plug in 4% for the Greens, you get a total Green vote of 4.988 (less than 5) yet it still gives them 6 seats. If you plug in 0% for the greens they get 6 seats.
So its an early pentium calculator. It doesn’t work.
Vote:September 22nd, 2005 at 11:08 am
‘where are Diebold voting machines when you need them’
That would be quite funny, if it wasn’t such a serious issue in the USA
Vote:September 22nd, 2005 at 11:31 am
The media is all talk about the Greens with regard to the special votes without any mention of National’s chances of achieving the same number of MPs as Labour.
According to my calculations under the St. Lague formula National only need to increase their final vote by 0.2% at the expense of 0.2% from Labour. This means National would be 39.82% and Labour would be 40.54% for both parties to have 50 MPs.
For the specials to create this type of result National would need to beat Labour by 2.99%, something like 43.99% to National and 41% to Labour of the special votes. This isn’t impossible, in fact more likely considering the makeup of who make special votes.
The only problem with this type of outcome is that Jim Anderton would pick up another MP and they would need to maintain their 1.21% support. Then again, ACT would still have 2 MPs to counter that – whew!
This type of outcome would generate a lot of pressure on Peter Dunne and Winston Peters considering their pre-election promises to support the party with the most support. Dunne should look to the party vote support in his own electorate which overwhelmingly backed National and a change of government. As for Winston, is Brash now regretting trying to destroy Winston on his own turf in Tauranga?
Considering who National will need to form a majority a hung Parliament and another election is more likely.
But consider this. Sharples is a liberal and a lot of his writings have criticised Labour’s treatment of Maori by what he calls state induced dependency. If National and ACT got rid of the scrapping of the Maori seats (which was a stupid idea anyway if you traced the Maori seats history) Sharples could produce a shock – or a miracle in National’s case.
Vote:September 22nd, 2005 at 11:51 am
The calculator is fun. What is not amusing is Scoop’s glee and delight in Hard Labour’s victory.
The illiberal left is enjoying its moment in the sun!
Vote:September 22nd, 2005 at 4:45 pm
The calculator seems to be very reluctant to give Lab and Nat equal seats. I tried several combinations and with Labour ahead by 17 votes (total) it still has a 1 seat advantage. Move National to 17 ahead and it flips to the Nat’s with a 1 seat advantage. Guess we’ll have to bite our nails another week.
Vote:September 22nd, 2005 at 8:34 pm
mika, at the moment the minor parties have 23 seats between them and Labour and National 99 between themselves – if all you are changing is the number of votes National switches with Labour have then then they will have to have differing numbers of seats (because if they have the same number then they can’t add up to 99).
If you change the number of votes/seats a minor party has (for example by giving the greens an extra seat) then it should be reasonably easy to have both National and Labour on 49 seats.
Vote: