History The
first general and
provincial elections in New Zealand took place in 1853, the year after the British Parliament passed the
New Zealand Constitution Act 1852.
Women's suffrage was introduced in 1893, with New Zealand being the first modern country to do so. Almost all general elections between and were held under the
first-past-the-post voting system. The first election under the
mixed-member proportional (MMP) system was held in following the
1993 electoral referendum.
Electoral roll The
electoral roll consists of a register of all enrolled voters, organised (primarily alphabetically by surname) within electorates. All persons who meet the requirements for voting must by law register on the electoral roll, even if they do not intend to vote. Although eligible voters must be enrolled, voting in New Zealand elections is not
compulsory. To be eligible to enrol, a person must be 18 years or older, a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident and have lived in New Zealand for one or more years without leaving the country (with some exceptions). People can provisionally enrol to vote once they turn 17, with them being automatically enrolled on their 18th birthday. The Registrar of Births Deaths and Marriages automatically notifies a person's death to the Electoral Commission so they may be removed from the roll. An enrolment update campaign is conducted prior to every local and general election in order to keep the roll up to date, identifying any voters who have failed to update their address or cannot be found. The roll records the name, address and stated occupation of all voters, although individual electors can apply for "unpublished" status on the roll in special circumstances, such as when having their details printed in the electoral roll could threaten their
personal safety. The roll is "public information" meaning it can be used for legitimate purposes such as selecting people for
jury service but it can be abused especially by
marketing companies who use the electoral roll to send registered voters
unsolicited advertising mail. According to Elections New Zealand, "having the printed electoral rolls available for the public to view is a part of the open democratic process of New Zealand". The Electoral Commission, in their report on the 2017 general election, recommended that roll sales be discontinued for anything other than electoral purposes.
Electorates and lists New Zealanders refer to electoral districts as "electorates", or more colloquially as "
seats". Since the 2020 general election, there are 72 electorates, including seven
Māori electorates reserved for people of
Māori ethnicity or ancestry who choose to place themselves on a separate electoral roll. All of New Zealand is covered by a general electorate and an overlapping Māori electorate. According to the New Zealand Electoral Commission, "The Representation Commission reviews and adjusts electorate boundaries after each 5-yearly population census and the Māori Electoral Option." The number of electorates increased by one compared to the
2017 election to account for the
North Island's higher population growth, creating
Takanini; and the boundaries of 30 general electorates and five Māori electorates were adjusted. Supplementing the geographic electorate seats, the system allows for 48 at-large "list seats". A nationwide
party vote fills these seats from
closed lists submitted by political parties; they serve to make a party's total share of seats in parliament reflect its share of the party vote. For example, if a party wins 20% of the party vote, but only ten electorate seats, it will win fourteen list-seats, so that it has a total of 24 seats: 20% of the 120 seats in parliament. (See .)
Timing of elections General elections signs the writ for the
2020 general election Unlike some other countries, New Zealand has no
fixed election-date for general elections, but rather the
prime minister determines the timing of general elections by
advising the
governor-general when to issue the
writ for a general election. The
Constitution Act 1986 requires new parliamentary elections every three years. The 1910s, 1930s and 1940s saw three elections delayed due to World War I, the
Great Depression and World War II, respectively: the
1919,
1935 and
1943 elections would otherwise have taken place in 1917, 1934 and 1941 (Parliaments passed Acts extending their terms). Also, governments have occasionally called early, or "
snap" elections (for example, in
1951 in the midst of
an industrial dispute involving striking waterfront workers). The
term of Parliament and the timing of general elections is set out in the Constitution Act 1986 and the
Electoral Act 1993. Under section 19 of the Constitution Act, Parliament must meet within six weeks of the return of the writ for a general election, while under section 17, the term of Parliament ends three years after the return of the writ, unless Parliament is
dissolved earlier by the governor-general. Section 125 of the Electoral Act requires that whenever Parliament expires or is dissolved, the governor-general must issue a writ of election within seven days. Section 139 of the Electoral Act provides further constraints. The
1996 election took place slightly early (on 12 October) to avoid holding a by-election after the resignation of
Michael Laws. As in other
Westminster-style democracies, the prime minister's power to determine the election date can give the government some subtle advantages. For example, if the prime minister determines a section of the population will either vote against their government or not at all, they might hold the election at the most advantageous time – as long as it is within three years. Party strategists take the timing of important
rugby union matches into account, partly because a major match in the same weekend of the election will likely lower voting-levels, and partly because of a widespread belief that incumbent governments benefit from a surge of national pride when the
All Blacks (the New Zealand national rugby team) win, and suffer when they lose. Throughout the late 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, tradition associated elections with November – give or take a few weeks. After disruptions to the 36-month cycle, prime ministers moved to restore it to a November base. In 1950, the legal requirement to hold elections on a Saturday was introduced, and this first applied to the . Beginning with the , a convention was formed to hold general elections on the last Saturday of November. This convention was upset by Muldoon calling a snap election in 1984. It took until the to get back towards the convention, only for
Helen Clark to call an early election in . By the , the conventional "last Saturday of November" was achieved again. From the , the trend has been to hold the election in September or October; the , delayed from September to October due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, caused the 2023 election to also be held in October. The date chosen for the 2026 election was 7 November.
Local elections Unlike general elections, elections for the city, district and regional councils of New Zealand have a fixed election date. Under section 10 of the Local Electoral Act 2001, elections must be held on the "second Saturday in October in every third year" from the date the Act came into effect in 2001. The latest local body elections were held
on 11 October 2025.
Nomination and deposit of political parties and candidates A party that has more than 500 fee-paying members may register with the Electoral Commission.
Registered parties may submit a party list on payment of a $1000 deposit. This deposit is refunded if the party reaches 0.5% of the party votes. Electorate candidates may be nominated by a registered party or by two voters in that electorate. The deposit for an electorate candidate is $300 which is refunded if they reach 5%.
Voting Library,
Christchurch, for the 2014 election. The white leftmost box is for
special votes, with the orange boxes being for ordinary votes for the (from left to right) , , and electorates. A voting screen can be seen to the left. Election day for both Māori and general seats has been held on a Saturday since 1951, so as to minimise the effect of work or religious commitments that could inhibit people from voting. The casting of ballots happens at various
voting places, generally established in schools, church halls, sports clubs, or other such public places. In some elections, voting booths are also set up in hospitals and rest homes for use by patients (though this did not happen in the 2020 election because of the
COVID-19 pandemic). Voters have the flexibility of voting any voting place in the country, regardless of the electorate they live in. Some voting places may have electoral rolls of multiple electorates to assist voters, but if the voting place does not have the correct electoral roll then a voter will have to cast a
special vote.
Advance voting is available in the two weeks before election day. A dominating feature of the 2017 election was the increased use of advance voting; 47% of the votes were taken in advance and grew from 24% in the 2014 election. In the 2020 election, 68% of votes were cast in advance If voters cannot physically get to a voting place, they may authorise another person to collect their ballot for them. Overseas voters may vote by post, fax, internet, or in person at
New Zealand embassies or high commissions. Disabled voters can choose to vote via a telephone dictation service. Enrolled voters are sent an EasyVote pack by post after nominations close. The pack contains an EasyVote card, which has the voter's name, address and location on the electoral roll (electorate, page number and line number), which the voter gives to the issuing officer to assist in finding the voter on the printed electoral roll. The EasyVote Card is optional, and voters can simply state their name and address to the issuing officer. The EasyVote pack also contains a list of candidates in the voter's electorate, a copy of the party lists, a list of voting places for the voter's electorate and their opening hours, and a brochure on how to vote and the MMP voting system. After their name is marked off, the voter is issued a voting paper. The voter then goes behind a cardboard screen, where they mark their paper using a supplied orange ink pen. The voter then folds their paper and places in their electorate's sealed
ballot box. Voters who enrol after the rolls have been printed, voting outside their electorate, or on the unpublished roll casts a special vote which is separated for later counting. New Zealand has a strictly enforced
election silence. Campaigning is prohibited on election day and all election advertisements must be removed or covered by midnight on the night before the election. Opinion polling is also illegal on election day.
Referendums held in conjunction with elections are held at voting places; those between elections may be done by post or at voting places at the Government's discretion.
Voting in the MMP system Each voter gets a
party vote, where they choose a political party, and an electorate vote, where they vote for a candidate in their electorate. The party vote determines the proportion of seats assigned to each party in Parliament, as long the party meets the
electoral threshold. Each elected candidate gets a seat, and the remaining seats are filled by the party from its party list.
Vote-counting and announcement Voting places close at 7:00 pm on election day and each place counts the votes cast there. The process of counting the votes by hand begins with advance and early votes from 9:00 am. From 7:00 pm, results (at this stage, provisional ones) go to a central office in Wellington, where they are recorded in a spreadsheet and entered into the national election results system. Election results are published on ElectionResults.govt.nz as they arrive, and simultaneously shared with the media, with the goal of having 50% of results available by 10 p.m. and 95% by 11:30 p.m. At this stage,
special votes, which can be returned up to 10 days after election day, are counted in the electorate they were cast for and included in the official count. The final count, including special votes, can take up to three weeks to be completed and announced. In
1999 the provisional result indicated that neither the
Greens nor
New Zealand First would qualify for Parliament, but both parties qualified on the strength of special votes, and the major parties ended up with fewer list seats than expected. Candidates and parties have three working days after the release of the official results to apply for a
judicial recount, either of individual electorates or of all electorates (a nationwide recount). A judicial recount takes place under the auspices of a
District Court judge; a nationwide recount must take place under the auspices of the Chief District Court Judge. At the 2023 election, recounts were requested in the
Mount Albert and
Tāmaki Makaurau electorates, after the top two candidates in each were separated by fewer than 50 votes. == Voter turnout ==