How the votes in the New Zealand election will be counted

Every vote in the New Zealand election will be counted by hand, not by machine. Final results are expected by Friday, 27 November, according to an RNZ explainer on how the count works.

Results come in two stages. The first is a preliminary count on election day. Votes cast on election day are counted after polls close at 7pm and released as preliminary results. Early ordinary votes cast during advance voting are taken to electorate headquarters before voting closes and counting begins, but those results are not released until 7pm. The preliminary count includes all ordinary votes cast on or before election day. The Electoral Commission's target is to have 50 percent of results available by 10pm on election day and 95 percent by 11.30pm. The preliminary count should be complete by Sunday morning, according to Newsroom. Once the count at a voting place is finished, the results are phoned through to the electorate.

Candidates and parties can appoint scrutineers, people who are allowed to watch the early and election day counts.

Special votes are handled separately. The Electoral Commission expects as many as 700,000 of them. A special vote has to be returned to the electorate it was cast for before it can be counted. Each special vote declaration is checked to confirm the voter is enrolled and eligible to vote. The commission expects to take about 20 days to complete those checks and deliver the final results.

The official count is carried out by Electoral Commission staff, not volunteers. As part of it, the commission compares every copy of the electorate roll in each electorate to identify voters who may have voted more than once. When the count for each voting place is complete, the totals are recorded on a certificate signed by the returning officer, the official in charge of the count in each electorate, and by a Justice of the Peace, who witnesses official documents. The official count is declared by the Chief Electoral Officer, the head of the commission.

Once counting is finished, the voting papers are sealed in envelopes and placed in boxes closed with tamper-proof seals. The boxes are kept in secure storage for six months. After that, the papers are shredded and destroyed.

Each enrolled voter receives two votes under the mixed member proportional (MMP) system: an electorate vote and a party vote.