2020 New Zealand general election & referendums (17 October)

[Former President tack50]

I thought the threshold was 4% and not 5%?

If it's 4%, NZF has a possibility for an upset but it is unlikely. If it is 5% they are toast I guess, unless they somehow win an electorate.

[Pericles]

I thought the threshold was 4% and not 5%?

If it's 4%, NZF has a possibility for an upset but it is unlikely. If it is 5% they are toast I guess, unless they somehow win an electorate.

5%, and despite the latter scenario being speculated about, they're not going to win an electorate. The Greens have a slim shot in Auckland Central as a backup plan, but most likely is that Labour gains that seat, and second most likely is that they split the vote for National to retain it in an upset.

[Pericles]

Newshub poll;

61 Labour seats (+15 from 2017), 41 National (-15), 10 ACT (+9), 8 Green (no change) and 0 NZ First (-9)

Preferred PM is 52.6% Jacinda Ardern to 18.4% Judith Collins.

[Tender Branson]

I’m most interested in turnout (also in the BC election).

It may give us further clues about the US turnout.

On the other hand, NZ and BC are not impacted as much by the virus ...

[brucejoel99]

Oh my god, Winston's actually gonna pull it off, isn't he?

Now I almost wanna see him do it (though preferably with Jacinda not asking him to return to the government) just for the thrashing he'll give the media. His smugness will be enough to power the whole North Island for a month.

[Pericles]

Colmar Brunton also put out some referendum numbers. On cannabis, No is leading 51%-41% (a trend to Yes since their last poll). On End of Life choice, Yes is leading 60%-33% (a trend to No since their last poll).

Also, with that Newshub poll, here's how Newshub was off in the last election. They overestimated National by 1.4%, overestimated Labour by 0.4%, overestimated the Greens by 0.8%, underestimated NZ First by 0.1%, and overestimated ACT by 0.1%. So hypothetically applying that to this poll, that results in 45.4% Labour/62 seats, 29.7% National/40 seats*, 7.3% ACT/10 seats, 5.5% Green/8 seats, and 3.6% NZ First/0 seats. The wasted vote there seems way too high though. One other comment, in an amazing ironic coincidence, Labour's poll numbers are exactly the same as what the final polls gave National in 2017. Colmar Brunton gave National 46% in 2017, now it gives Labour 46%, Newshub gave National 45.8% in 2017, now it gives Labour 45.8%. I'm starting to wonder if Labour will end up on 44.4% of the party vote lol.
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Anyway, for my prediction. Hopefully this is pretty accurate, I'm going a bit bold with some stuff.
Labour-46%
National-30%
ACT-8%
Green-6%
NZ First-4%

Though Labour and ACT are a high 46% and 8%, so maybe one rounds up to a higher share. I think this would result in a bare Labour majority. Labour has had a better ending to the campaign than National and has been on-message in appealing to those wavering soft National voters.

I think the cannabis referendum will sadly fail, the 10-point margin in Colmar Brunton sounds about right. Anecdotally, there is a big age divide. Pretty much all the young people I know support it, but the older generations are opposed. End of Life Choice is too far ahead to fail, I have seen a lot of late attacks on it but so many people have already voted that even if the attacks work they have come in too late. I think Yes gets something like 57% or 58%.

With the electorates, this will be interesting to watch. People do vote a bit on the local candidate there, but it is pretty correlated with the party vote. Given National got 41 electorates to 29 for Labour last time, I expect Labour to make significant gains. It will be interesting to see the extent of these gains, and how much some National candidates can run ahead of the party vote. Currently, I'll predict this-
Labour gains Auckland Central, East Coast, Hamilton East, Hutt South, Maungakiekie, Nelson, Otaki, Takanini (new electorate), Tukituki, Waiararapa and Whanganui to end up with 40 electorates. It could be a bit lower, or maybe the swing is even bigger and they really start biting into the National base. There are a lot of very safe National seats though (Labour has some even safer ones though. National's best electorate in 2017 in terms of the party vote was Hunua with 62.95%, Labour got 71.04% in Mangere. And remember, National beat Labour by 7.56% in the overall party vote then.)

*I hope National's party vote ends up with a '2' in front of it. 29.9% would be emotionally more satisfying than 30.1%.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway, for my prediction. Hopefully this is pretty accurate, I'm going a bit bold with some stuff.
Labour-46%
National-30%
ACT-8%
Green-6%
NZ First-4%

*I hope National's party vote ends up with a '2' in front of it. 29.9% would be emotionally more satisfying than 30.1%.

Not gonna lie, I fiddled with the numbers a bit for my prediction to give them that 2.

[Oryxslayer]

I'll take the under on whether Labour gets 61, since everyone else is taking the over. Labour-Green govt.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Are all Māori electorates Safe Labour?
What use has the Māori Party anymore?

By the way: I agree with Pericles and Fubart Solman about the emotional satisfaction of National getting <30%

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Are all Māori electorates Safe Labour?
What use has the Māori Party anymore?

By the way: I agree with Pericles and Fubart Solman about the emotional satisfaction of National getting <30%

I’m not sure I’d call the Māori electorates safe Labour, but I think Labour will win all of them.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Jacinda and the Labour Party should still be cruising to victory, right? I haven't been catching up much with this election for the past 2 or so months.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Jacinda and the Labour Party should still be cruising to victory, right? I haven't been catching up much with this election for the past 2 or months.

Basically it’s a question whether or not Labour will be able to govern on their own. That hasn’t happened under MMP (since the 1996 election).

[Oryxslayer]

Jacinda and the Labour Party should still be cruising to victory, right? I haven't been catching up much with this election for the past 2 or months.

More or less. It's almost guaranteed to be labour forming the govt, just what govt is the question. If say there are only three parties in parliament and a lot of wasted votes, then Labour are getting a majority with their present polling average. Whereas if Winston somehow gets back in alongside ACT and the Greens then Labour are more likely going into coalition or minority govt. Labour's overall end percentage is the most important number if not enough votes are wasted, so this is more or less a game of margins.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Jacinda and the Labour Party should still be cruising to victory, right? I haven't been catching up much with this election for the past 2 or months.

Basically it’s a question whether or not Labour will be able to govern on their own. That hasn’t happened under MMP (since the 1996 election).

Jacinda and the Labour Party should still be cruising to victory, right? I haven't been catching up much with this election for the past 2 or months.

More or less. It's almost guaranteed to be labour forming the govt, just what govt is the question. If say there are only three parties in parliament and a lot of wasted votes, then Labour are getting a majority with their present polling average, whereas if Winston somehow gets back in then Labour are more likely going into coalition or minority govt. Labour's overall end percentage is the most important number if not enough votes are wasted, so this is more or less a game of margins.

Thank you both!

[mileslunn]

How quickly will results roll in?  I don't believe New Zealand uses exit polls so for those of us on West Coast of North America, poll closes at 11PM Friday, so by 2AM will we have a good idea of final results?

[Pericles]

How quickly will results roll in?  I don't believe New Zealand uses exit polls so for those of us on West Coast of North America, poll closes at 11PM Friday, so by 2AM will we have a good idea of final results?

Very quickly we expect, as the advance votes can already be counted.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

How quickly will results roll in?  I don't believe New Zealand uses exit polls so for those of us on West Coast of North America, poll closes at 11PM Friday, so by 2AM will we have a good idea of final results?

I believe that they could start counting early votes this morning. It sounded like those should come in pretty quickly after 11 PM. Special votes won’t be in for a while (as in a week or something iirc). Those usually lean a bit to the left.

I’m glad that I’ll be able to see at least the initial results come in before bed time too.

[Oryxslayer]

From another forum:

Here is a loose timeframe for the counting process, from NZH:

Early votes will begin to be counted at 9am (9PM tonight UK) tomorrownow today at secure electorate headquarters around the country.

Once voting closes tomorrowtoday, the manager of each voting place opens the boxes and counts the votes.

Preliminary numbers will start being released soon after 7pm (7AM UK) tomorrow (Around 720 PM apparently); 50 per cent of the results are expected to be available by 10pm and 95 per cent by 11.30pm.

The official count begins on Sunday and will include special votes, which can come in up to 10 days after election day.

The chief electoral officer will declare the official results 20 days after election day, on Friday, November 6.

[mileslunn]

From another forum:

Here is a loose timeframe for the counting process, from NZH:

Early votes will begin to be counted at 9am (9PM tonight UK) tomorrownow today at secure electorate headquarters around the country.

Once voting closes tomorrowtoday, the manager of each voting place opens the boxes and counts the votes.

Preliminary numbers will start being released soon after 7pm (7AM UK) tomorrow (Around 720 PM apparently); 50 per cent of the results are expected to be available by 10pm and 95 per cent by 11.30pm.

The official count begins on Sunday and will include special votes, which can come in up to 10 days after election day.

The chief electoral officer will declare the official results 20 days after election day, on Friday, November 6.

So if Labour gets 58-61 seats, we might not know if it is a majority or coalition until after US election is known.

[Pericles]

From another forum:

Here is a loose timeframe for the counting process, from NZH:

Early votes will begin to be counted at 9am (9PM tonight UK) tomorrownow today at secure electorate headquarters around the country.

Once voting closes tomorrowtoday, the manager of each voting place opens the boxes and counts the votes.

Preliminary numbers will start being released soon after 7pm (7AM UK) tomorrow (Around 720 PM apparently); 50 per cent of the results are expected to be available by 10pm and 95 per cent by 11.30pm.

The official count begins on Sunday and will include special votes, which can come in up to 10 days after election day.

The chief electoral officer will declare the official results 20 days after election day, on Friday, November 6.

So if Labour gets 58-61 seats, we might not know if it is a majority or coalition until after US election is known.

Labour+Green+NZ First only had 61 seats on Election Night 2017 (it was ultimately 63 seats), so the special votes can make a difference. Jacinda Ardern even admitted it would have been very hard to form a government on the Election Night results. Maybe with lots of New Zealanders having returned from overseas, the amount of special votes and so the change they bring will be less.

[mileslunn]

Any chance there will be an exit poll or are those illegal in New Zealand?  Most countries usually have exit polls when polls close.  Here in Canada we don't, but our ballots are counted super quick and usually after one hour you have a good idea on whom he won.

[Pericles]

Any chance there will be an exit poll or are those illegal in New Zealand?  Most countries usually have exit polls when polls close.  Here in Canada we don't, but our ballots are counted super quick and usually after one hour you have a good idea on whom he won.

Exit polls are illegal, but the early results are pretty similar to an exit poll.
By the way, the strict laws on avoiding election coverage today are pretty funny. Here is a tweet they made, this is at foreign MPs (actually Angela Eagle lol. She deleted it so idk what she said).https://mobile.twitter.com/ElectoralCommNZ/status/1317225839604346880
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2020/10/electoral-commission-targets-foreign-mps-discussing-nz-election-on-social-media.html

[mileslunn]

I am guessing Angela Eagle endorsed Jacinda Ardern?  For Social democrats in Europe, I can see why so many are rooting for her as social democracy has had a rough decade so any success they can find anywhere is a plus.

[Tender Branson]

Ca. 2 million NZers voted early until yesterday:



That is by 750.000 more than in 2017.

For turnout to reach a comparable 80% from 2017 again, another 800.000 would have needed to vote today.

[Pericles]

I waited until today to cast my vote, some people like to do it the traditional way. Hopefully enough so turnout is higher than it has been recently.