More on electoral petition

Adam Gifford has a useful recollection of a time when Winston was far less concerned about over-spending. Because it was one of his own MPs!

The Dominion Post also has an article on the electoral petition, and reports on confusion as to what would happen if the petition is sucessful and Peters won the by-election.

I can clear up the confusion!

If there was a by-election and Peters won it, then he would have effectively resigned as a List MP, and NZ First would get an extra List MP (Susan Baragwanath) to replace him. So NZ First goes to eight and National drops to 47.

Mike Williams obviously does not know electoral law. Well about as well as he can predict electorate victories or estimate candidate spending!

I’m also unsure that the Dominion Post is correct when it says:

In 1979, as a National Party candidate, he won Hunua after the Appeal Court overturned a ruling by the High Court that nearly 900 ballot papers were invalid because they had not been filled in correctly. The Appeal Court said the determining factor should be whether a voter’s intention was clear.

My recollection is Peters won because in fact the decision was that those votes filled in incorrectly were deemed invalid, even though the intent was clear, and it took Parliament to change the law to what it is today. Not 100% sure on this so await someone who can research this.