What might happen on specials?
I’ve just plugged the provisional count numbers into the St Lague formula. The allocation is:
- National 59
- Labour 43
- Greens 8
- Maori 3 (+2 overhang)
- United Future 1
- 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.