Kiwiblog

Unlike previous years, the Chief Electoral Officer will not be releasing the final count (including specials) progressively as each electorate is finalised. They will all be released this Saturday.

However some electorates will have observers there for the count of the specials. This may give some indication as to the overall trend. Therefore, if anyone out there gets any info on how the specials have gone locally, could you e-mail them to me. If I get half a dozen or so, then I should be able to make some predictions on how many list seats, if any, will change hands due to the specials.

I’ve previously blogged on whether specials may change any allocation of List MPs. The other question is whether any seats held by narrow majorities could change due to specials. The answer is yes, but unlikely.

The most marginal seat is New Plymouth – Jonathan Young got 48.6% of the vote to 47.6% for Harry Duynhoven. There were 32,029 valid votes. There are 2,351 known specials for the seat and we estimate 1/70th of the 32,000 overseas specials, so the numebr of specials is predicted to be 2,808.

The specials would have to be 6.1% better for Labour and worse for National for Harry to win. Or in other words they would need to go Harry’s way 53.7% to 42.5%.

In Auckland Central Nikki Kaye beat Judith Tizard by 1,181 votes. However there are a large 6,420 specials plus overseas votes. Niiki beat Judith 43.0% to 38.8%. Judith would need to win the specials 49.5% to 32.3% to close the gap.

In Christchurch Central, Nicky Wagner would need specials to go her way 53.3% to 32.2% – 12.1% better than on the day.

New Plymouth looks to be the only seat which could seriously change, and even that isn’t very likely.

I am doing well to date on iPredict. Of 11 stocks, I have made money on 10 on them, totalling a net gain of just over $1,000. I lost money on Benson.Pope contesting the election, but have made money on:

1. Goff to be Leader
2. Cunliffe not to be Leader
3. Maori Party to have an agreement with National (not yet closed)
4. Peters not to be an MP
5. Bridges to win Tauranga
6. John Key to be PM
7. Peters not to resign or be sacked
8. Obama to be President
9. Short selling President not to be Obama or McCain
10. The third quarter inflation rate

Yesterday I blogged the Specials:

For Labour to gain a seat off National

If National gets 0.16% less on the specials and Labour 0.16% more on the specials, then Labour get the 120th seat. So if National gets 45.29% on the specials instead of 45.45% and Labour gets 33.93% instead of 33.77%, Labour gain a seat off National.

For Greens to gain a seat off National

If National gets 1.62% less on specials, and Greens 1.62% more, then Greens would get the 120th seat off National. Another scenario is Greens get 1.55% more and National and Labour lose 0.78% each.

For both Labour and Greens to gain a seat, and National lose two seats

If Labour does 2.51% better on specials and Greens 2.10% better, than they will take spots 119 and 120 and knock two seats off National. This would mean National gets only 40.8% of specials, Labour gets 36.3% and Greens get 8.5% for this to happen.

Ipredict has the following stock prices:

• National to lose no seats – $0.77c
• National to lose one seat – $0.24c
• National to lose two seats – 0.02c

I have just purcahsed some National to lose one seat stock at a bit over 20c. It is by no means certain National will lose a seat, but with Labour needing to lift its vote for specials by just 0.16%, then I’d put the probability at well above 20c.

There were 2,092,787 votes counted on election day. Remaing to be counted are 240,000 special votes, of which around 32,000 are overseas votes.

The current St Lague formula allocation gives us the following placements:

• Quotient 117 – National Seat 57
• Quotient 118 – Labour Seat 43
• Quotient 119 – National Seat 58
• Quotient 120 – National Seat 59
• Quotient 121 – Labour Seat 44
• Quotient 122 – National Seat 60
• Quotient 123 – Labour Seat 45
• Quotient 124 – Green Seat 9

Now if the 240,000 specials follow the pattern of ordinary votes, then there is no change.

The question is how much of a difference is needed for seats to change. We’ll start with the easist change – quotients 120 and 121 to swap places – ie Labour grabs a seat off National.

For Labour to gain a seat off National

If National gets 0.16% less on the specials and Labour 0.16% more on the specials, then Labour get the 120th seat. So if National gets 45.29% on the specials instead of 45.45% and Labour gets 33.93% instead of 33.77%, Labour gain a seat off National.

For Greens to gain a seat off National

If National gets 1.62% less on specials, and Greens 1.62% more, then Greens would get the 120th seat off National. Another scenario is Greens get 1.55% more and National and Labour lose 0.78% each.

For both Labour and Greens to gain a seat, and National lose two seats

If Labour does 2.51% better on specials and Greens 2.10% better, than they will take spots 119 and 120 and knock two seats off National. This would mean National gets only 40.8% of specials, Labour gets 36.3% and Greens get 8.5% for this to happen.

For National to gain a seat

This is all but impossible. National would need to do 7.4% better on specials and Labour 7.4% worse. So unless specials split 52.9% to 26.4%, National can only stay the same or lose seats.

For ACT to lose a seat

ACT are in spot 114. Could they miss out? Well if they only got 1.62% of specials compared to 3.72% on the night, and Labour and National both were 1.05% higher on specials, then ACT would just love spot no 5. Tis looks highly improbable.

Could NZ First make it?

Only if they got 11.9% of the specials, on top of their 4.21% on the night. You can all relax.

I’ll look at how specials can change electorates in a later post.

I’ve just plugged the provisional count numbers into the St Lague formula. The allocation is:

1. National 59
2. Labour 43
3. Greens 8
4. Maori 3 (+2 overhang)
5. United Future 1
6. ACT 5

Now who is most at risk from specials? They are the party that is in List Spot 120. And that is National.

The quotient for National is 951145/117 = 8129.4. And who is in spot 121? Labour with 706666/87 = 8122.6.

Very roughly if Labour pick up 600 more votes relative to National, then they get one more List MP, and National loses one. That is not at all impossible.

But could someone else grab it off National. The Greens have spot 124, being 134622/17 = 7918.9. They would need to gain an extra 3,600 votes (on top of their existing proportion of votes) from specials. That is a bit of an ask, but they have done well on special traditionally.