Image: Archi Banal

PoliticsOctober 13, 2023

Saturday night and Sunday morning: Where to watch Election 2023

Staff writer

Image: Archi Banal

All the election coverage your eyes and ears can handle this weekend.

Tonight at 7pm, the glorious triennial television event known as “election night” will finally begin, and screens across Aotearoa will begin to vibrate with the pulse of the nation. Whether you prefer your updates via your eyes, ears or simply through your open pores, we have all the details on how to find the 2023 election coverage this Saturday night, as well as the juicy post-match analysis on Sunday.

Of course, trusty website The Spinoff will also be vibrating, as we bring you all the latest developments through the weekend. We’ll have rolling live updates, a Gone by Lunchtime livestream, and the latest breaking news on snacks and vibes from our brave team members attending real life political party events across the motu.

Saturday 14 October (from 7pm onwards)

1News Your Vote 23: Election Special (TVNZ1)

John Campbell, Jack Tame and Jessica Mutch McKay lead TVNZ’s coverage and analysis, and will be joined in the Auckland studio by a dazzling array of ex-politicians and other people with opinions. Reporters will also be scattered around the country to provide live updates. Fingers crossed for a repeat of last election’s chaotic Telethon vibe, and don’t worry, they’ll still break for Lotto at 8pm.

1News Your Vote 23 Election Night Special screens on TVNZ1, TVNZ+ and 1News.co.nz. Live captioning for Election Night is provided by Able.

Newshub Decision 2023 Election Night (Three)

Ryan Bridge vowed that Newshub’s election night coverage will be the political party “we never knew we wanted”, so gird your loins and break out the silly string. Bridge joins Samantha Hayes, Patrick Gower and Jenna Lynch to front Newshub’s studio coverage, where they’ll be assisted by a “brilliant” expert panel and journalists crossing live from around New Zealand.

Coverage is live on Three, ThreeNow and YouTube.

Whakaata Māori

Whakaata Māori will provide comprehensive live election coverage from their new studio, Hawaikirangi. Hosts Tina Wickliffe and Tūmamao Harawira will be joined by studio guests throughout the night, as well as reporters based at various campaign headquarters. “It’s going to be huge!” they’ve promised.

Live coverage is available on Whakaata Māori and Māori+.

RNZ Election Special

How long has the radio been on the telly? Two ticks for that sneaky bit of science. Lisa Owen, Corin Dann and Jane Patterson will anchor RNZ’s election night coverage, with guests including former National Party general manager Chris Simpson, Māori academic Dr Ella Henry, former MPs Sue Moroney and Heather Roy, and South Auckland community advocate Dave Letele. They’ll also have – you guessed it – journalists reporting live from around the motu.

The RNZ Election Special will livestream on RNZ, YouTube, Facebook and screen on Freeview Channel 50 (as well as broadcast on RNZ National from 7pm until midnight).

Newstalk ZB

Newstalk ZB is teaming up with NZ Herald to provide “hard hitting interviews, live results, polls, public opinion and more”, with commentary and analysis from journalists Shayne Currie, Barry Soper and Fran O’Sullivan, and ZB hosts Mike Hosking and Heather du Plessis-Allan.

People can listen on Newstalk ZB and iHeartRadio or watch at NZ Herald.

The Spinoff: Gone By Lunchtime Election 2023 debrief livestream

After months of living and breathing this year’s election campaign, Gone By Lunchtime’s Toby Manhire, The Bulletin editor Anna Rawhiti-Connell and The Spinoff editor Madeleine Chapman join together to discuss the events of election day. Toby will be fresh from a whirlwind tour of various party events while Anna will emerge from a day spent devouring election coverage. Together they’ll react to the atmosphere of the day, the surprise wins and the all important snack offerings at the parties’ parties.

You can watch the livestream on The Spinoff YouTube channel after the main party speeches on election night (subscribe and hit the “notify me” button to get an alert when it starts). Or if you can’t watch live, it will later be released as a Gone By Lunchtime podcast.

Sunday 15 October

TVNZ

Things kick off bright and early on TVNZ1, with Tagata Pasifika at 7.30am, followed at 8am by a two hour Q+A special led by Jack Tame, who may or may not have slept under the news desk. At 10am, Marae will delve into what the election results mean for Māori. All shows screen live and on demand on TVNZ+.

RNZ National: Post Election Special

Ingrid Hipkiss and Guyon Espiner are joined by RNZ’s deputy political editor Craig McCulloch from 8-10am.

Three

The Hui will deliver a post-election special from 9.30am, followed at 10am by a live and extended 90 minute episode of Newshub Nation, hosted by Rebecca Wright and Simon Shepherd. Also screens live and on demand on ThreeNow.

Whakaata Māori

At 11am, Whakatau 2023 will highlight the election results and profile the winners and losers from last night. Also screening live on Māori+.

The Spinoff

The official Gone By Lunchtime reaction pod will drop at midday on Sunday, with more in depth coverage on all things election from hosts Toby Manhire, Annabelle Lee-Mather and Ben Thomas.

Follow Gone By Lunchtime on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Keep going!

The election is on October 14. Image: Archi Banal

PoliticsOctober 13, 2023

When will we know the NZ election result?

Toby Manhire

Editor-at-large

The election is on October 14. Image: Archi Banal

Everything you need to know about when things will unfold on Saturday night and beyond.

What time do results come in?

The polls close at 7pm on Saturday October 14. And we’ll get a pretty good idea of how accurate the opinion polls were very swiftly after that.

How swiftly?

Very. Well over a million advance votes will have been cast around the country between October 2 and 13, and the count of these ballots will get under way on Saturday morning. These are the first results that come through progressively after 7pm.

When exactly?

Last time around the first results were posted by the Electoral Commission at around 7.04pm. About 3% of the overall vote was there at 7.12pm. We’ll have a live feed of the party numbers as they’re posted on this very website so stay tuned.

How reliable is that early vote?

They’re worth approaching with some caution, the early numbers for individual electorates especially. But as far as the party vote is concerned, it’s almost immediately going to be a big sample size. In 2020, we at the Spinoff were confident enough at 7.20pm to call the election for Labour – the landslide was already clear.

What if advance votes skew in a particular direction?

The last couple of elections suggest they come very close. For example:

And:

When are votes cast on election day counted?

These are called “ordinary” votes and they’re counted from 7pm. “Special” votes are counted after election day.

If I cast an ordinary vote does that define me as a person?

No. Whenever you vote you are special.

How are votes counted?

They’re counted by human hand. Contrary to some misinformation that has floated about with a whiff of importing conspiracy, New Zealand categorically does not use vote counting machines.

And how long until we get most of the results?

The Electoral Commission target is to post results from 50% of voting places by 10pm and 95% by 11.30pm.

What about the electorates?

Results will flow in for electorates through the night, too. These are more likely to fluctuate based on votes rolling in from particular booths. For a quick summary of the electorate races likely to be tight, see our roundup here.

What are special votes?

These include votes cast abroad, but a common misconception is that these account for the majority of “specials”. All votes cast out of your own electorate are special votes (including, this election, both Christoper Luxon and Chris Hipkins’ advance votes). If you enrol and vote at the same time that’s also going to be counted as a special vote. These can can come in up to 10 days after election day.

How many special votes can we expect?

In 2017 there were 446,287 – roughly 17% of the total – special votes cast. Of those, roughly one in seven – 61,524 – was cast overseas. It was a similar story in 2020. There were 504,625 special votes, again 17% of the total, with about one in eight overseas.

When will the final result of the election, including special votes, be revealed?

The official results will be published on Friday November 3.

When do coalition talks begin?

They can crack on pretty much immediately. In some cases, such as 2017, the numbers are balanced such that parties will taihoa on the crunchy stuff until the special votes are revealed.

And when do coalition talks end?

In 2017, talks took about four weeks. The longest negotiations were after the first MMP election in 1996, when negotiations lasted two months. If that seems like a long time, consider the Belgian example: after an election in 2010 it took 541 days of negotiations to form a government.

What did the last polls say?

They pointed to a National victory, but one that would require support from both Act and NZ First to govern.

The average above, translated into parliament (and assuming Te Pāti Māori wins at least one electorate), would give National 45 seats, Labour 36, the Greens 16, Act 11, NZ First nine, and TPM three. National is likely to win a byelection in Port Waikato on November 25, giving the party another seat in what would become a 121-seat parliament.

And when will the second election be held?

Don’t even.

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Toby Manhire
— Editor-at-large