The special votes are finally in, and along with them new Green MP, Kennedy Graham:
The Greens gain a new MP and National lose one with the special votes now counted.
There were 270,965 special votes – that is people who voted in advance, from outside their electorate or overseas.
The results were released by Chief Electoral Officer Robert Peden on Saturday afternoon.
The Greens picked up about 0.3%, or about 70,000 more party votes.
That gives them a ninth MP – Kennedy Graham. He has been attending Caucus and preparing to become an MP as it was always likely he would make it in. The Greens traditionally do well on special votes.
70,000 votes out of 270,000 specials cast is nearly 26 percent. Which apparently was a misprint by NZPA/TVNZ. It looks like we got about 23,000 votes or roughly 9.1 percent. That suggests the Greens’ twin overseas vote and late enrolment vote campaigns were both very successful. It seems kind of appropriate the Graham should be reliant in part on overseas votes for his seat in Parliament given his work towards global disarmament and peace.
Nice work Kennedy!
g.blog 
PS – it’s nice to have a Cantabrian back in the Green caucus again (so long as he remains outnumbered by Wellingtonians, that is).
You’ve got your maths right, but the article doesn’t.
There’s no way you got 70,000 specials, you only have 157,000 total.
That would have put you at about 3% on election night without them.
Thanks peteremcc – I’ll update accordingly.
Woohoo!
Congratulations to Kennedy Graham, I look forward to seeing some more of him in the future – a real asset to those like me who have an interest in peace and disarmament issues.
Keith must be pretty stoked, too! 😀
That’s awesome! All those Facebook promotions by Rayna Fahey and the London team paid off. Congratulations to everyone involved.
😀 😀 😀
Best news to come home from Vanuatu to!! I hope this means we can call Kenneth the MP for Australia and London!