Specials Scenarios
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.