By Richard Wood
The final results of the 2026 Aotearoa New Zealand elections won’t be confirmed for weeks, but what’s certain is that Kiwis now have their least representative parliament since the introduction of Proportional Representation in 1996.
Earlier this year the same thing happened in Scotland. The SNP returned to government yet again, but with their voting base considerably decreased and a high mismatch between seats and votes overall. Both Scotland and New Zealand use mixed-member proportional systems meaning a chunk of representatives are elected via First Past the Post (FPTP) and the rest are elected on party lists to compensate for the disproportionality of FPTP. Voters get two votes, one in their local constituency and one for the party of their choice.
However, the systems differ considerably in design specifics.
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Scotland has a fixed number of total seats at 129, with 73 constituencies, as well as 56 list seats available across eight electoral regions. List seats are determined by list votes while taking into account the number of constituencies won by each party in each region to deliver a strong element of proportionality.
Meanwhile, our Kiwi friends have 72 constituencies (known as electorates). Most of these are general electorates while seven are Māori seats (voters vote in one of the other if they are Māori). The parliament is designed to have 120 seats. When the party votes are all added up, seats are calculated across the whole country. If a party wins more electorates that it is entitled to proportionaly it keeps those seats, parliament expands to accommodate that ensuring that other parties get their proportionate share of seats of a 120 seat parliament even if the parliament is bigger. Crucially, only those getting 5% or more of the vote win list seats, unless they win electorates, in which case list seats are allocated proportionality even if below 5%.
. The parliament is designed to have 120 seats. When the party votes are all added up, seats are calculated across the whole country. If a party wins more electorates that it is entitled to proportionaly it keeps those seats, parliament expands to accommodate that ensuring that other parties get their proportionate share of seats of a 120 seat parliament even if the parliament is bigger. Crucially, only those getting 5% or more of the vote win list seats, unless they win electorates, in which case list seats are allocated proportionality even if below 5%.
2026 was the year the election results in each country diverged significantly from the underpinning electoral system principle of seats matching votes.
In Scotland, the SNP won 18 more seats than they would be entitled to if all seats in each region were allocated via the party list vote. This is known as an overhang. The fixed number of list seats could only go so far to correct for the SNP’s overrepresentation with other parties losing out.
And on the other side of the world, the National Party (the main centre-right conservatives) have won around 42 seats electorates, seven more than the 35 it would be entitled to if all seats were allocated proportionally. Labour are basically on the same vote share as National but are only on 36 seats overall. This overhang, as with the SNP, is due to National winning more electorates than they would be entitled to proportionally, similar to the SNP.
Te Pāti Māori also have an overhang, winning around five Māori electorate seats on a party vote share of less than 1%.
Unlike Scotland, New Zealand’s parliament flexes in size to accommodate this to an extent. National and Te Pāti Māori keep their electorates, as did the SNP, but other parties receive list seats they are entitled to as calculated by determining their proportionate share of 120 seats. That mechanism limits some of the disproportionality compared to Scotland, but does not directly compensate for the overhangs created. As a result, National and Te Pāti Māori have a disproportionately large number of seats while other parties are disadvantaged as their overall seat share is only determined as a proportion of the 120-member parliament intended.
Concerns about the potential for overhangs has dominated much of the narrative ahead of the campaign in New Zealand. And these overhangs might even directly lead to a government formation that wouldn’t happen otherwise. Currently, the governing right-wing coalition have a majority of votes and seats, but special and overseas votes could shift that balance. The left bloc, including Te Pāti Māori, and unaligned centrist Opportunity Party could end up with more votes and be able to form a government if final allocation of seats allign. Those overhangs are crucial in determining the vote and seat alignment of each bloc.
What will follow regardless of the final outcome will be a forensic look at the election from the media as well as an examination oc party and third-party voting campaigns to game the system and a big discussion about MMP 30 years on from its introduction. That conversation should be used to make improvements and close loopholes that weaken the principle of seats matching votes in practice. But there are certainly actors in New Zealand that will want to use this result to undermine MMP.
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In contrast, discussions about Scotland’s system got a bit of attention at election time but have largely disappeared. The 2026 election should have been a wake up call with discussions about how to improve the system or indeed move to something more proportional and more empowering of voters.
Seats should match votes. It’s as simple as that. No system is perfect, but when that principle is deviated from, as seen in Scotland and Aotearoa, politicians should defend that principle with robust action that goes above and beyond party politics. What the Kiwis do is ultimately up to them, but I’ve got more optimism that they’ll address their disproportionality than what at Holyrood.
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