The only seat where there is a significant chance of a change on special votes would seem to be New Plymouth, where National won by 314 votes. If this were overturned then Jonathon Young would be out and National would get another list MP, with Harry Duynhoven returning to the Labour caucus at the cost of a list MP. I think the odds are perhaps 60-40 against this happening – the margin is a full one percent – but it might.

Nat 55 + ACT 5 + UFNZ 1 = 61
Lab 41 + Prog 1 + Green 8 + NZF 6 = 56
Maori 5

So still a National-led Government but one that needs Maori Party support.

In 2005 National’s share of the vote declined by .53% after special votes were counted. Labour rose by .36% and the Greens by .23%.

If the count changes by the same amount this year, National would drop to 57 while Labour and the Greens each gain one.

I know that this seems bizarre but this is what the electoral calculator on the elections.govt.nz site shows.

The maths is complex but the analogy goes like this:

As things are now there is a three-way split for the 120th seat. Essentially National is now entitled to 58.34 seats, Labour to 43.33 and the Greens to 8.33. National gets rounded up.

Each about .75% of the vote gets you 1 MP, so losing .53% drops National’s entitlement to about 57.6. Gaining .36 would boost Labour to about 43.75, and gaining .23 would boost the Greens to 8.65. There are two seats to allocate to the fractions, and National misses out.

Note that I am not predicting this will happen, just warning that it might!

Cheers, Sean.

I was at the Green London election event – terrible turnout, but throughly nice people who didn’t partake in our champagne quaffing! There were a couple who were absolutely green at the idea that an ACT supporter was in the same room as them – but I had a great time.

Has anyone noticed that this Austrian guy Frtizi, shown here….

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10542991

… looks like our good old guy Garth George, show here, after a bad night of drinking…

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz-election-2008/news/article.cfm?c_id=1502734&objectid=10542700

It must be Friday… and to keep on topic, I predict no change to seats after specials

The Greens traditionally have good overseas support from people who dont follow politics but are proud of NZ’s clean green image & hence don’t care who wins (Nat or Lab) so long as the Greens have a voice. A nice centrist & enviromentally responsible choice you might think, but of course the real policies the Greens promote are non pragmatic and decidedly communist/ anti capitalist (read: anti freedom, anti wealth, anti human, anti christian-values), so this is quite misguided, though well intentioned.

The Maori party may well get more support, particularly in Australia, for the same reasons as the Greens, but less of a misguided vote as the voters are more likely to get what they want.

NZFirst is unlikely to get much of any support overseas. The retirees are in NZ!

On the other side of the coin, Pro National and Act supporters may well have left NZ in a huff over the past 9 years, chasing better opportunities overseas where they are not held down by our low wages, low quality public services, high taxes, and red-tape supressing business growth. One would expect NZers overseas to be successful hardworking people, and will tend to vote right-of-centre. Not sure how this stacks up in practice though.