An unexpected by-election

The sad death of ACT’s Neil Christensen means the local candidate election for Port Waikato has been cancelled.

The Electoral Act has a section which states that the death of any candidate (no matter if they were likely to win the seat or not) between the closing of nominations and E-Day will result in the election for that seat (party vote still counts) being cancelled.

This may end up affecting the overall Parliament. Because only 71 electorates will declare a result, we will then end up with 49 List MPs instead of 48. So when the final vote is declared, the 120 seats will all be allocated. Then in probably December there will be a by-election for Port Waikato and whichever party wins that seat basically gets an additional MP.

A Parliament of 121 will need the same majority as a Parliament of 120 – 61 MPs. But if say National and ACT got 60 seats in the general election, then by the end of the year they might have 61.

These provisions of the Electoral Act have not been used in my memory, and probably should be replaced with a provision that allows an election to continue if a candidate dies, and only if the dead candidate wins, do you then have a by-election.