Now it’s final

Tonight the Electoral Commission released the final results of the first referendum on the alternative design for the New Zealand flag. Although it could have changed from the preliminary results, it didn’t—if anything, it reinforced the choice of New Zealand voters.

The results (image below) show that voters’ choice for one of the Kyle Lockwood designs was not only firm right up until the very end, it actually grew. This means that at least one of his designs was the choice of voters all the way through. The other designs also improved their support, but didn’t gain anywhere near enough to challenge the most popular designs.

The reality is that that the bottom three designs combined had less than half the support on first preferences of either Kyle Lockwood design, and it only got worse from there. That’s despite all the hype before and sour grapes since, it’s worth noting.

The people who hated the Kyle Lockwood designs before, hate them as much or more now. Maybe they can’t understand how they got it so wrong, but I well know how easy it is to believe one’s own hype (I’ve been there!). Still, whether they choose to be negative and bitter is their own choice.

Voter turnout increased slightly from 48.16% to 48.78%. Informal votes—most likely protesting, well, something—actually decreased slightly from 9.7% to 9.68%, and invalid votes increased from 0.16% to 0.22%.

I’ll talk about my own choice more in future posts, but, for now, I’ll just reiterate that I’m okay with the result, and I will be voting for change. What others do is their choice.