✶ Electoral Act 1993 · Mixed-member proportional
Your party vote decides how many seats each party gets. Your electorate vote decides who represents your area. 71 MPs come from electorates and the other 49 from party lists, topped up so the House matches the party vote. Change the numbers — or the rules — and see the seats move.
Official 2023 party vote and the 71 electorates decided on the night (Port Waikato's poll was cancelled; National won the by-election). It reproduces the declared 48–34–15–11–8–6 and the two-seat overhang.
| Party | Party vote % | Electorates |
|---|---|---|
| National | ||
| Labour | ||
| Green | ||
| ACT | ||
| NZ First | ||
| Te Pāti Māori | ||
| Opportunity | ||
| Others | — | |
| Independents | no party vote |
Party vote total 100% · electorates 71 of 71
| Party | Vote | Qualifies | Elec. | List | Seats |
|---|
Each qualifying party's votes are divided by 1, 3, 5, 7… The 120 largest quotients win the seats being shared out. The table shows the last seats awarded and the quotients that just missed.
| Seat | Party | ÷ | Quotient (vote % ÷ divisor) |
|---|
Calculation: Sainte-Laguë as the Electoral Commission applies it, ties broken by votes rather than by lot. Small parties are pooled as "Others", which never wins list seats. Party colours are our own.
How it works
The party vote is the one that sets the shape of Parliament. The electorate vote elects one MP for your area by first-past-the-post. You can split them: in 2023 National won 43 electorates on 38.1% of the party vote, so it needed only 5 list MPs.
A party needs 5% of the party vote to share in list seats. In 2008 New Zealand First won 4.07% and no electorate, and all its MPs lost their seats. In 2023 the Opportunity Party won 2.22% and no seats, so those votes elected no one.
A party that wins an electorate qualifies for list seats whatever its party vote. In 2008 ACT won 3.65%, but Rodney Hide held Epsom, so ACT came in with five MPs while New Zealand First, on more votes, had none. That is why a large party will sometimes signal its voters to back a small partner's candidate in one electorate.
A party keeps every electorate it wins, even more than its share. In 2023 Te Pāti Māori won 6 Māori electorates but its 3.08% party vote was worth only four seats: the two extra became overhang and the House grew to 122 instead of 120. Port Waikato's by-election added the 123rd seat. Other parties lose nothing.
The 120 seats (less any won by independents) are shared among qualifying parties by dividing each party's votes by 1, 3, 5, 7… and giving seats to the largest results. Odd divisors treat big and small parties more evenly than the D'Hondt method used in many other countries.
Worked example
Votes: A 53,000, B 24,000, C 23,000, D 19,000. Every party clears the threshold. Result: A 3, B 2, C 1, D 1.
| Rank | Party | Votes ÷ divisor | Quotient | Seat? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A | 53,000 ÷ 1 | 53,000 | Seat 1 |
| 2 | B | 24,000 ÷ 1 | 24,000 | Seat 2 |
| 3 | C | 23,000 ÷ 1 | 23,000 | Seat 3 |
| 4 | D | 19,000 ÷ 1 | 19,000 | Seat 4 |
| 5 | A | 53,000 ÷ 3 | 17,667 | Seat 5 |
| 6 | A | 53,000 ÷ 5 | 10,600 | Seat 6 |
| 7 | B | 24,000 ÷ 3 | 8,000 | Seat 7 |
| 8 | C | 23,000 ÷ 3 | 7,667 | — |
| 9 | A | 53,000 ÷ 7 | 7,571 | — |
| 10 | D | 19,000 ÷ 3 | 6,333 | — |
Under D'Hondt (divisors 1, 2, 3…) the same votes give A four seats and B one: dividing by odd numbers takes more off a large party's later quotients, which keeps mid-sized parties closer to proportion.
Proposals to change MMP
After the 2011 referendum kept MMP, the Electoral Commission's review recommended lowering the threshold from 5% to 4% (to be reviewed after three elections) and abolishing the one-electorate rule. Parliament did not adopt either change.
The panel set up by the previous government recommended a 3.5% threshold, abolishing the one-electorate rule, and no longer adding overhang seats: other parties would get fewer list seats instead. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith released the report on 16 January 2024 and ruled out several other recommendations, including lowering the voting age to 16.
Unverified against the report's text: taken from news reports and summaries, because we could not read the report itself.
Set the threshold to 3.5%, untick the one-electorate rule and overhang, and load the 2023 result: Te Pāti Māori keeps its six electorate MPs but gets no list seats, and the House stays at 120.