Overhang projected to add 11 MPs to Parliament
On preliminary results, New Zealand's 120-seat Parliament is projected to grow by 11 MPs because of an overhang.
Under MMP, the mixed-member proportional system, voters cast one vote for a local electorate candidate and one for a party. The NZ Herald has explained that an overhang occurs when a party wins more electorate seats than its share of the party vote entitles it to.
On preliminary results, National held seven extra overhang MPs and Te Pāti Māori held four.
Te Pāti Māori campaigned on an overhang strategy. It asked supporters to give their candidate vote, meaning the electorate vote, to its candidates, but to give their party vote to the Green Party or Labour.
Businessman Harry Mowbray told National supporters to give their electorate vote to National but their party vote to ACT or NZ First.
Lawyer Graeme Edgeler said there was a reasonable chance the overhang came about organically rather than being artificially caused. He suggested it could reflect high unpopularity of both National and Labour going into the election.
Edgeler said the Electoral Commission's split-vote analysis would shed more light on what happened and why. He said the result was not "a mockery of MMP", but that the MMP system should be reviewed again if a repeat looked likely.
Otago University law professor Andrew Geddis has said that an overhang election would subvert the purpose of MMP.
RNZ has described National's overhang as historic. For comparison, overhangs created the largest Parliament New Zealand has had, with 123 seats, at the 2023 election, according to RNZ's explainer on overhangs.
