Fast-track urged for vote count
Special votes shouldn’t take two weeks to be counted, former prime minister Geoffrey Palmer says.
New Zealand is in a state of limbo until October 7, when the results of the 384,072 special votes will be returned.
These special votes account for about 15 per cent of the total vote and could move the mix of seats around.
Historically, special votes have favoured the Left, and Labour and the Greens are hoping this will again be the case.
In 2014, when they made up about 12 per cent of the vote, they resulted in National losing a seat and the Greens gaining one.
The man currently holding the balance of power – NZ First’s Winston Peters – has made it abundantly clear he won’t make any decision on which party he will align with until after these results come in.
During a bizarre press conference on Wednesday, where he berated the media, Peters said he wanted to wait to hear the ‘‘precise voice’’ of New Zealand, before making a choice.
The question is, why does it take two weeks for 15 per cent of the votes to be counted, when the rest were counted on the day?
What are special votes? On election night we were given the ‘‘preliminary results,’’ which did not include ‘‘special votes’’.
Special votes are any vote cast outside of a home electorate, any vote cast from overseas, or crucially – any vote cast by someone who enrolled after August 23.
Everyone who enrolled to vote at the early voting booth, as tens of thousands of young people did, cast ‘‘special votes’’.
Also, dictation votes, where someone needed special assistance, or votes where someone voted in the wrong electorate, are classed as specials.
Why does it take two weeks? The process of counting votes is complicated and rigorous, and laid out in the Electoral Act.
The official results process starts on the Sunday after polling day but cannot be completed until after the last legal day for receiving special votes from other electorates and returning officers overseas, which is 10 days after polling day.
Any special votes not returned by October 3 will be disallowed.
The special votes also have to be returned to their electorate to be counted.
This obviously takes a lot longer when votes have been cast at overseas polling booths. They first have to be returned to New Zealand, then to their electorate within New Zealand, then they can be counted.
Of the 384,072 special votes, there are an estimated 61,375 overseas and dictation votes. The exact number of overseas votes won’t be known until after they are returned and counted, an Electoral Commission spokesperson said.
After a variety of checks, valid special votes are admitted to the count.
As well as counting the special votes, the ballots counted on election night are re-checked, to make sure the voter’s intentions are clear, then recounted. This gives us the final, official, election results.
Could it be quicker? Because of the 10-day return rule, and the need to check and count special votes, as well as check and recount all other votes, the process will take the full 14 days.
The overseas votes take the longest to process because of the travel time.
But Palmer said more could be done to change the way overseas votes were collected to make the process more efficient.
Things like more online voting, or using electoral officers to count votes overseas, could speed up the process.
It was unnecessary to keep the country waiting for a full two weeks, he said.
Let’s just be thankful the process isn’t going to take nine weeks like it did following the country’s first MMP election and coalition negotiations back in 1996.