A few Hamilton voters proved me right

Surprising absolutely no one, the National Party candidate won the Hamilton West By-Election, which ended yesterday. The only thing we didn’t know for sure was how low the turnout would be. It was truly awful.

The turnout for the election was appalling. That was expected, but the extent was a bit worse than the most optimistic guesses. During the Advance Voting period (November 26 – December 9), 9,836 votes were cast. That compares with 24,595 votes cast during the Advance Vote period for the 2020 General Election.

The most recent By-Election was in the Tauranga Electorate when former National Party Leader Simon Bridges quit Parliament to become the head of a business lobby group in Auckland. In the By-Election to find his replacement MP, 14,168 votes were cast in the Advance Voting period (In total, Tauranga had a total of 20,784 votes cast).

Altogether—including both the Advance Voting period and votes cast on Election Day (December 10)—14,392 votes were cast in the Hamilton West By-Election. As at November 30, 2022, there were 55,512 enrolled voters in the Hamilton West Electorate, which is 84.09% of the eligible population on that date. This means that fewer than 26% of enrolled voter bothered to vote, and fewer than 22% of eligible voters.

Some journalists report voter turnout as a percentage of the eligible vote. However, unenrolled people can’t vote because they aren’t enrolled, so, in my view, the turnout among enrolled voters is the important statistic. That number, though, should be reported with a notation that, in this case, 15.91% of eligible voters weren’t registered for whatever reason.

I think this matters because otherwise it implies that people not enrolling to vote are “sending a message”, but there are always a lot of reasons why people don’t enrol—and age is one of the biggest reasons. In Hamilton West, a bit fewer than 54% of eligible people 18-24 were enrolled, only 74% of people 25-29, and just under 80% of people 30-34. At least 86% of people 35 and older were enrolled to vote (and the percentage keeps rising with age). The counter argument is that voters can enrol on Election Day, so if they remain un-enrolled, it may be deliberate. Sure, it could be that—or maybe not. There’s absolutely no way to know.

Whenever voter turnout is low, it’s almost certainly the most highly-motivated people who make a point of voting. Generally speaking, they’re the people with the strongest opinions and, in this case, they obviously oppose the current Labour Government. Here are the preliminary results of the By-Election, along with my own comments (the candidates are listed in declining order by result, just as they were in the preliminary results):

POTAKA, Tama, National Party: 6,629 votes (margin of victory was 2,285 votes).

DANSEY, Georgie, Labour Party: 4,344 votes. She went to the National Party candidate on Election Night to concede in person. She said she’ll be the party’s candidate in the General Election next year.

McDOWALL, James – ACT New Zealand party: 1,462 votes.

SHARMA, Gaurav, the former Electorate MP, who ran under his own party label: 1,156 votes.

POCOCK, Naomi, The Opportunities Party (TOP): 337 votes.

POKERE-PHILLIPS, Donna, the candidate for the far-right extremist NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party: 125 votes.

DU PLOOY, Rudi, running as the candidate of both the far-right christianist New Conservative Party and the utlra-far right theocratic christianist One Party: 117 votes.

WAKEMAN, Peter, Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party: 71 votes.

TAIT, Jade, of the ultra-far right christianist Vision New Zealand: 57 votes.

DICKSON, Gordon John, Independent: 26 votes.

FU, Frank, Independent: 22 votes.

OSMASTON, Richard, Money Free Party: 7 votes.

There are a number of things that stand out to me in the results. First, and the most encouraging, was the fact that a tiny, tiny 299 votes went to the most hard-core, hard-right, anti-government, and christianist candidates. That means combined they only got around 2% of the vote in an election where the outcome wouldn’t change anything so people could be free to vote their passion. Clearly the highly-motivated voters who bothered to vote in the By-Election don’t sympathise with the extremist fringe. That’s very good news, indeed.

A combined 5500 votes went to the two opposition rightwing parties, who would be in coalition if the Right wins the 2023 General Election. This time, they together got around 56% of the total vote, which underscores the anti-government nature of the vote. The National Party candidate alone got around 46% of the vote, which is a plurality, but not a majority. The Labour Party candidate got a bit more than 30% of the vote. Since Electorate elections are conducted under the old-fashioned first-past-the-post election system, a plurality is all that’s needed to win, and that fact could help either Labour or National.

Overall, though, the National Party is in a good position to hold the electorate seat in the 2023 General Election, particularly if anti-government sentiment remains strong (which is probable if the Reserve Bank of New Zealand follows through on its threat to deliberately crash the New Zealand economy). Also, the clear majority of combined votes—some 70%—were in opposition to the Government, or, at least, not in direct support of it. Despite all that, nothing can be taken for granted in a multi-candidate election, as both National and Labour would agree.

When I talked about the By-Election last month, I said that “hardly anyone will vote, regardless of who they support.” I also noted that the National Party candidate was “the clear and obvious favourite to win”, and about National, “the wind is still at their back”. I was right on all that (and I stand by all my disparaging remarks about extremist candidates).

I received very little advertising material at my house: The National candidate was first, and I also got material from candidates on the far-right and also TOP. The last one I got was from Sharma, and I found it when I opened my front door, where it had been stuck in the opening. “Sorry I missed you,” it said. The first thing that popped into my head was, “I’m not.” I opened the door because I was headed out to vote, and that was never going to be for him.

I received two campaign phone calls: One was from a Labour Party phonebank, and I was pleased to tell them I’d already voted for Labour. The other call was a Labour Party robocall on Friday evening—and it was, as far as I can remember, only the second robocall I’ve ever had (the first was during the 2017 General Election campaign and on behalf of National).

There was one funny (to me…) accidental thing that happened: Every time I saw the name of Rudi Du Plooy—which admittedly was only a couple times—my brain said, “Rooty Tooty Da Pooty” because my brain conjured up the decades-old ad slogan/product name from American restaurant chain IHOP: The “Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘n Fruity” breakfast item. While I’m not above mangling someone’s name on purpose for comedy or because of a strong dislike, this was absolutely not intentional. I’ve often said that if I could put everything I need to remember to an advertising jingle (or even a slogan), I’d never forget anything. This goes to show that it wouldn’t necessarily mean I’d remember it correctly. It does go to show, I suppose, that I didn’t take anything about this By-Election seriously, not with an obvious outcome that my vote couldn’t possibly affect. It was also easy to call it exactly right—it was pretty much impossible to get it wrong.

Oddly, I’m suddenly craving pancakes…

Disclosures: I’m a member and supporter of the New Zealand Labour Party, but have absolutely no position of any kind with them, nor am I in contact with party leaders. All opinions expressed are entirely my own, based on some 50 years closely following politics and election campaigns (obviously I started when I was an infant…), as well as my personal values. I voted for Gaurav Sharma in New Zealand’s 2020 General Election, the first election I was able to vote in the Hamilton West Electorate.