Specials tomorrow

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, October 6th, 2017 - 35 comments
Categories: election 2017, electoral commission - Tags: , , ,

According to the Electoral Commission “The target to release the Official Results of the 2017 General Election is 2pm on Saturday 7 October 2017.” A blogger at Cut Your Hair has crunched the numbers and sees only two plausible outcomes:

Realistic possibilities for Parliament post-specials (all two of them)
…
On the basis of past election results since 19992, there are only two likely scenarios for how the preliminary seat allocations in Parliament will change after special votes are counted:

Golriz Ghahraman (Green) is in. Nicola Willis (National) is out. This is what will happen if the special vote results are like what they’ve been most MMP elections in NZ. On this scenario, A Nat-NZF government would have 66/120 seats. A Lab-NZF-Green government would have 62/120.

Golriz Ghahraman (Green) and Angie Warren-Clark (Labour) are in. Nicola Willis and Maureen Pugh (both National) are out. This is what will happen if the special votes are like what they were like last election. On this scenario, a Nat-NZF government would have 65/120 seats. A Lab-NZF-Green government would have 63/120. [my emphasis]…

Read on for lots of crunchy spreadsheets.

So was this election most like “most MMP elections” (1 seat change) or most like last election (2 seats)?

There remains a (mathematically unlikely) possibility that this election is a whole new beast, that the rush of late enrollments contains a mini “youth quake” resulting in a 3 seat swing. Don’t pin your hopes on it!

Certain commentators have been trying to paint the left into a corner on the specials:

But it will ultimately be for nothing if the Labour/Greens block can’t pick up a couple more seats via special votes to legitimise their position above a one seat majority with New Zealand First, Dann said.

I suppose Dann regards the minority government of the last 3 years as illegitimate then? The truth is that whatever the outcome of the specials, winning confidence and supply votes in parliament is all that matters. Even if specials result in no changes, 61 gets it done.

35 comments on “Specials tomorrow ”

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  1. One Anonymous Bloke 1
    6 October 2017 at 9:06 am

    If Corin Dann is going to insist on interviewing himself, he could at least buy himself a dictionary.

  2. Barfly 2
    6 October 2017 at 9:27 am

    “On the basis of past election results since 19992”

    not sure when reached 19992 🙂

    • Incognito 2.1
      6 October 2017 at 9:30 am

      It’s in a dystopian world called The Matrix where Blade Runner meets Minority Report – Discovery. Sylvester Stallone has a ‘starring’ role in it too 😉

  3. Pat 3
    6 October 2017 at 9:29 am

    thanks for posting this Anthony……only one day to wait to see if that late youth vote occured and the ‘somewhat unlikely’ exchange of seats happens……National with 34.5% of the specials seems entirely realistic to me.

    • Anne 3.1
      6 October 2017 at 9:37 am

      Anecdotal evidence suggest it did occur but it may not have been large enough to make much of a difference. If it produces two extra seats – one Labour and one Greens – I’ll be very happy, but you can’t rule out the possibility the youth meant to get off their backsides and enroll/vote but didn’t get there.

  4. millsy 4
    6 October 2017 at 9:46 am

    Labour needs scenario 2 to happen if there is any chance Labour-Green-NZF forming a government.

    So we shall see what happens. Then the clickbait and keyboard interviewing stops, well for now anyway,

    And try and remember what happened in 1996. That way, you won’t be disappointed, like I was back then. I remember that evening clear as day.

    • mickysavage 4.1
      6 October 2017 at 11:42 am

      I do as well. It was the day that I decided to get involved in politics again after Reogernomics had crushed my political activism.

      • Thinkerr 4.1.1
        6 October 2017 at 9:32 pm

        Ditto for me. It was the day I realised words have different meanings when spoken by politicians (sometimes several), such as “Vote for me and change the government”.

  5. Karen 5
    6 October 2017 at 9:57 am

    Thanks for the reference to the Caleb Morgan Day’s analysis – love that stuff.

    My optimistic partner was trying to convince me there would be one more seat for the Greens and 2 for Labour, but now I have the evidence that this, as I thought, would be unlikely.

    Although I am not keen on Labour and the Greens having to work with NZF, I still think it will be much better than the alternative. There is some serious poverty in this country and some people are not going to survive another Nat led government.

  6. Carolyn_nth 6
    6 October 2017 at 10:17 am

    James Shaw said immediately after election night that it would only take a small increase in the GP vote to get another MP. He has repeated that in an article on RNZ today:

    Green Party leader James Shaw said in all but one election since 1999 his party has gained an extra Member of Parliament after those votes were counted.

    He was extremely confident they would do so again.

    “This time we actually only need 0.13 percent of the specials to get Golriz Ghahraman in and so I’m about 99 percent confident that that’s going to happen.

    “It’s actually quite likely that there will be a seat transferred from National to Labour as well.”

    • Bearded Git 6.1
      6 October 2017 at 5:19 pm

      I worked it out on election night (not that I’m a nerd or anything) and it really is a tiny shift to get the Greens one more seat from National.

      Would Winston go with 62-58? I think so-Key has had similar numbers for 6 years.

      (BTW ACT’s one frat-boy should be added to the ‘orrible Nats of course)

      • Carolyn_nth 6.1.1
        6 October 2017 at 5:48 pm

        Unless Labour-Green-NZF can get at least 63 (maybe 64) votes, I’d expect NZF to go with National. A 2 seat buffer is still pretty risky, especially when NZF could always vote with the Nats on specific issues.

  7. patricia bremner 7
    6 October 2017 at 10:52 am

    We all hope so.

  8. Cinny 8
    6 October 2017 at 12:56 pm

    One more sleep woot woot !!!! 😀 Special day 😀 The day my vote is officially counted, that’s the only bugger about being on the unpublished roll, you don’t feel like your vote matters until the special results come in.

    Am expecting a large volume of the specials to come from tertiary students, judging from the rallies, as well as the ability for them to enroll and vote during the 2 weeks of advance voting.

    What a massive number of specials, 15% of all votes is huge, i wonder could this be the largest chunk of special votes NZ has ever had?

  9. ianmac 9
    6 October 2017 at 1:28 pm

    One clever columnist reckoned the rush seen at Universities was not to support Labour, but to block Labour from instituting the free Tertiary fees. They would hate to see the oncoming students getting what they missed out on.
    Credible? Nah!

    • Craig H 9.1
      6 October 2017 at 2:09 pm

      Maybe, but analysis of all the university polling booths was done, and is more left leaning than the general results. I did the same for Ara (formerly CPIT), and it showed the same trend.

    • Cinny 9.2
      6 October 2017 at 6:56 pm

      ROFL !!!!!

      Bye bye Maureen Pugh

  10. ianmac 10
    6 October 2017 at 1:31 pm

    If a couple of NZF mps jumped ship to National say next year, I wonder what would happen to Lab/Gree/ NZF ruling Government? Would be suicidal of course but…

  11. CoroDale 11
    6 October 2017 at 2:07 pm

    Best result would be a re-vote.
    Greens back >10+, contending Maori Seats, and active student door knocking, Maori enrolled and voting, 15%.
    NZF could increase rural vote, and work harder on elderly.
    Labour would remain leading partner, with more solid champagning around schools and corrections. Gnats continue to weaken.

  12. greywarshark 12
    6 October 2017 at 4:37 pm

    On what’s going to happen tomorrow after talks Gordon Campbell’s take in Scoop on it sounds amusing.


    Gordon Campbell on Peters’ end game in the coalition talks

    We’re now entering the Agatha Christie phase of the coalition negotiations, given that all the main characters have been summoned to the drawing room today by M. Hercule Peters. Although the resolution of the plot will take a few days yet, one can bet … .. Read the rest on Scoop »

  13. greywarshark 13
    6 October 2017 at 5:17 pm

    Thanks veutoviper
    Sweet.