National leader Christopher Luxon has called strategic voting an “insanely stupid idea”, but his two coalition partners have told him the choice belongs to voters, not to him.
The row broke out on Monday 28 September, the day after National’s campaign launch in Auckland, and it goes to the heart of how the centre-right hopes to win the 7 November election.
Some voices on the right, including former National and ACT leader Don Brash, have been urging people to give their electorate vote to the local National candidate and their party vote to ACT or New Zealand First. The aim is to create an overhang, where a party wins more electorate seats than its share of the party vote would give it, and Parliament grows to fit them in.
At National’s launch at the International Convention Centre on Sunday, former prime minister Sir John Key used his speech to warn against the idea. According to RNZ’s report of the launch, he told the crowd “Don’t try and do something that you think is clever or try some form of so-called strategic voting … that is the opposite of clever.”
Luxon picked up the same message on the campaign trail the next day. “It’s an insanely stupid idea. There’s only one way forward, which is actually to party vote National,” he said, RNZ reported. “I want every single one of those 20 seats around that Cabinet table filled with National ministers.”
ACT leader David Seymour took a different view. He said it was “important to respect that both votes belong to the voter”, and added “In my experience, voters are often busy, but they’re not stupid, and it’s never wise to talk down to them.” Seymour suggested people use their party vote to reflect their values and give their electorate vote to the candidate who would answer their call at 5pm on a Friday.
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters was blunter. He said it was “rather desperate” to have a former prime minister on stage “giving out the wrong message”, and argued that what he called the “very manipulation of the electoral system” by Te Pāti Māori and the left “has to have a response”.
“The response that Mr Key set out was simply just not appropriate and not right, and was very, very ill-informed in my view,” Peters said.
Behind the argument sits a simple piece of MMP arithmetic. Under the system, a party’s share of the party vote decides its total number of seats. Electorate wins are counted first, and list MPs top the party up to its entitlement. If a party wins more electorates than its party vote justifies, it keeps the extra seats and Parliament gets bigger. That happened in 2023, when the Electoral Commission’s official results recorded an overhang of two seats because Te Pāti Māori won more electorates than its party vote share would have given it. A further seat was added after the Port Waikato by-election, taking the House to 123 members.
Brash told RNZ his push for strategic voting was partly a reaction to Te Pāti Māori, and partly a reaction “to the fact that National’s polling so poorly that their list vote looks to be weak, and by contrast, when they’re in two horse races, their electorate votes look strong”.
He said that on current polling “it looks as if National will not win any list seats at all”, something he described as a first in MMP’s history. “So it’s a real headache for them. People like Nicola Willis will not get into Parliament on current polling,” Brash said. Willis is the Finance Minister.
Brash said he had a very high regard for Sir John, but thought the “party vote National” message would have “no positive effect” and could hurt the chances of a centre-right government.
National’s worry runs the other way. If its supporters split their votes, the party could hold its electorates but lose ground in the party vote that decides how many ministers it can claim in a coalition, and how strong its hand is when the bargaining starts.
The latest numbers explain why the argument is so live. A 1News-Verian poll released on Monday night put National and Labour level on 28 percent each, with National down one point and Labour down two. The Greens rose four points to 16 percent, ACT rose two to 11 percent, New Zealand First rose one to 9 percent and the Opportunity Party fell two to 6 percent. Te Pāti Māori was steady on 1 percent.
On those figures National and Labour would each win 34 seats, the Greens 19, ACT 14, New Zealand First 11, Opportunity seven, Te Pāti Māori four and Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s Te Tai Tokerau party one. In both scenarios the pollster modelled, Opportunity held the balance of power. Because Luxon has ruled out working with Opportunity, RNZ reported that the result points to the left bloc being able to form a government.
In the preferred prime minister ranking, Luxon rose two points to 19 percent and Labour leader Chris Hipkins fell one to 14 percent. Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was on 8 percent, with Seymour and Peters each on 7 percent.
The poll surveyed 1004 eligible voters between 23 and 27 September and has a margin of error of 3.4 percent. Some 13 percent of those asked did not know or would not say how they would vote.
For ACT and New Zealand First, both polling higher than at the last Verian survey, strategic voting is a chance to grow their caucuses at National’s expense. For National, it is a threat to the party vote it needs to lead the next government with authority. For voters, it is a reminder that under MMP the two ticks do different jobs.
Advance voting opens on 26 October, and 25 October is the last day to enrol to vote. If you are still weighing up where the parties stand, the NEWS WIRE voting tool matches your views against their policies.
Will you split your vote this election, or give both ticks to the same party? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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