frogblog

The Herald reports today that:

Labour and the Greens are growing more confident the centre-left will win another seat from the special votes - a change which would significantly strengthen Helen Clark’s hand in forming the government.

(For those slow to this issue: the Greens need 4.5% of the specials to remain in Parliament and 7.9% of the specials to get another MP. In 1999, we got 8.1% of the specials, and in 2002 11.7%.)

I wouldn’t read too much into the Herald story just yet. Most political parties have scrutineers in electorates around the country monitoring the counting of special votes. When the counting in a particular electorate is complete, then the scrutineer present phones in the results to the party headquarters.

Now, it is highly unlikely that any party has a full picture of specials from around the country yet. However, what parties can do is compare the percentage of specials they got in a particular electorate with the percentage of votes of election day they got in the same electorate. If your specials percentage is higher than your election night percentage, then you’re heartened; if it’s lower, then you’re worried.

I would interpret the Herald story as meaning that Labour and/or Green scrutineers have been present in electorates around the country where specials returns have been completed, and are more favourable to our parties than were election night returns. This would give both parties heart: that Labour’s 22,000-vote lead over National won’t be eroded on the specials; and that the Greens won’t do the unimaginable and fall under the 5 percent threshold as a result of the specials.

It’s clearly far too soon to tell whether these favourable special results will translate into Nandor returning to Parliament. That will have to wait until Friday, or Saturday, or whenever the specials are ultimately announced. As Rod told the Herald:

It’s looking promising, but we are not cracking open the feijoa wine just yet.

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