Special votes give Labour fine margin

Special votes in favour of both Labour and the Maori Party have made the task of governing a bit easier for a Labour-led Government.

The final results released on Saturday, including the counting of nearly 250,000 special votes, saw National lose a seat and the "overhang" reduce by one after the Maori Party did well out of specials.

Election night results delivered a 122-member Parliament with a two-seat overhang - because the Maori Party won four electorates but its party vote entitled it to only two seats in the House. Under MMP the party does not lose the electorate seats, so Parliament's size went up by two.

But special votes pushed the party's vote up enough - from 1.98 to 2.12 per cent - for it to gain three MPs, reducing the overhang by one. With a 121-seat Parliament, Labour only needs 61 votes, instead of 62, to achieve majorities.

Labour received just over 100,000 special votes, indicating its policy to axe interest on student loans had the desired effect on students. Many special votes are cast outside voters' electorates.

Party president Mike Williams said the university seats round the country saw "good swings" to Labour in the special votes.

In places such as West and South Auckland there were a lot of late enrolments, which he said were driven by party organisations such as the electorate committees urging people to enrol, and "fear of defeat". Labour's share of the party vote rose from the election-night 40.74 to 41.1 per cent.

National received 80,000 special votes but its party vote share fell from 39.63 to 39.1 per cent. That meant it lost a seat, meaning Wellington's Katrina Shanks did not make Parliament.

The Green Party came close to getting MP Nandor Tanczos back on the special votes.

On election night the Greens won 5.07 per cent of the party vote and needed 5.32 per cent to get him back, but by its calculations fell 1246 votes short. Special votes did not overturn any election-night results in electorates. Labour's MP for Otaki, Darren Hughes, held on to the most marginal seat in the country, boosting his majority from 226 to 382.

At the other end of the spectrum, Labour MP Taito Phillip Field held on to Mangere by the largest margin - 16,020 votes compared with the election-night result of 13,860.

The final voter turnout was 80.92 per cent, up from 76.98 per cent in 2002.