New Zealand polls open as record numbers of voters cast ballots in advance

New Zealand goes to the polls to choose the make-up of its 52nd Parliament today, in a close-run race between the governing National Party and the opposition Labour Party.

Doors to the polling booths opened at 9:00am (local time), though a record number of voters had already cast their ballots in advance.

Voting will end at 7:00pm (local time) and the country's Electoral Commission will start releasing results 30 minutes later.

The centre-left Labour Party, led by recently appointed 37-year-old leader Jacinda Ardern, is vying against incumbent National Party.

The centre-right governing party, led by 55-year-old Bill English, has been in power for almost a decade.

About 986,000 ballots have already been cast, accounting for almost a third of the 3.2 million New Zealanders on the electoral rolls.

"Special votes," which includes ballots from New Zealanders overseas and those who vote outside their home constituencies, will only be released on October 7.

These could have a considerable impact on the outcome, given New Zealand's large diaspora, and accounted for about 12 per cent of the vote in the 2014 election.

New Zealand uses a German-style proportional representation system in which a party, or combination of parties, needs 61 of Parliament's 120 members — usually about 48 per cent of the vote — to form a government.

This means that minor parties often play an influential role in determining which major party governs.</s>WELLINGTON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - New Zealanders went to the polls on Saturday after the most hotly contested race in recent history, with changes to the country's openness to migration and trade and the central bank's approach to monetary policy among the possible outcomes.

The ruling National Party and opposition Labour Party had been neck-and-neck in opinion polls and will likely have to rely on minor parties to form a coalition in New Zealand's German-style proportional representation voting system.

A record 1.2 million votes were cast in advance, but neither major party was expected to win an outright majority. Negotiations with minor parties mean it could be weeks before a new government emerges.

"This has been an incredibly engaging and colourful campaign for New Zealanders and that isn't going to be over at midnight," said Bryce Edwards, an analyst at Wellington-based Critical Politics.

"The most likely scenario is we are going to have to wait two weeks when the final verdict is in from the Electoral Commission because it is just going to be so close," he said.

Jacinda Ardern, the charismatic 37-year-old who only became Labour Party leader in August, is vying to become New Zealand's third female prime minister and the youngest in modern history.

Prime Minister Bill English, who oversaw a disastrous election loss for the National Party in 2002, became leader last year after his predecessor John Key's shock resignation. His party has held power for almost a decade.

English and Ardern were expected to maintain fiscal prudence but will probably differ on monetary policy, trade and immigration. That will likely have implications for the New Zealand dollar, the world's 11th most-traded currency in 2016.

Ardern wants to add employment to the central bank's inflation-targeting mandate, which could mean more stimulatory monetary policy. She also wants to cut migration and renegotiate some trade deals, which some worry could hurt two key sources of growth for New Zealand's small, outward-looking economy. Polls closed at 0700 GMT and the day was eerily quiet until then, with the election hardly featuring in domestic news due to stringent restrictions on campaigning on election day. Preliminary results are due at 1130 GMT.

"Special votes", which include ballots from New Zealanders overseas and those who vote outside their home constituencies, will be released on Oct. 7.

These accounted for around 12 percent of the vote in the 2014 election and could have a considerable impact.

Ardern has called on New Zealanders to ditch "auto-pilot" governance, hoping to ride a global wave of change that most recently propelled France's Emmanuel Macron to become its youngest head of state since Napoleon.

She turned her flagging party's fortunes around in a matter of weeks but National, which has pinned its re-election bid on the economy's strong performance, has regained ground in recent opinion polls.

A tight outcome could weigh on the currency on Monday, as could results that foreshadow a change in government, analysts say.</s>Voting has opened in New Zealand’s most exciting general election in years, with New Zealanders asked to decide between the status quo of National or taking a punt on new Labour leader Jacinda Ardern.

New Zealand election 2017: record early voting as Ardern and English fight for win – live Read more

Polling booths opened in libraries, schools and town halls around the country at 9am (9pm Friday GMT) and will close at 7pm, after which results begin to roll in immediately.

A record number of voters have already cast their vote since booths opened in selected areas on 11 September.

More than 1.2 million people cast an early vote this year, compared with 717, 579 in 2014.. On Friday long lines were reported at polling booths around the country in what the electoral commission has just confirmed was the biggest day of advance voting on record with 253, 473 casting their vote.



The commission estimates 3,569,830 New Zealanders are eligible to vote this year.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bill English serves ice creams in Pokeno, on the last day of the campaign. Photograph: Mark Mitchell/AP

Archaic legislation bans campaigning in any form on voting day itself, including banners, T-shirts and roadside advertising. New Zealand media is banned from publishing any politics-related articles other than how and where to vote. Even members of the public are unable to discuss their voting choices on social media until the polls close, in case they influence those who have yet to cast their ballot.

New Zealanders are being asked to choose between prime minister Bill English’s National party, which has had nine years at the tiller; Jacinda Ardern, just seven weeks into her leadership of a revitalised Labour party; the Greens, or one of the plethora of smaller parties, which include New Zealand First, the Opportunities party, the Maori party, Act and the New Zealand Outdoors party.

With the 120 seats in parliament elected via constituency and party lists, coalitions – formal or otherwise – are the norm and English or Ardern could be forced to court a kingmaker. According to opinion polls, that could be Winston Peters, leader of the populist, anti-immigration New Zealand First.

New Zealand election: polls give Bill English reasons to be cheerful despite 'Jacinda effect' Read more

Two months ago the crawl towards the general election was looking pre-determined. National, led by ex-finance minister English, was polling well and looked set to be returned comfortably to a fourth term in government.

Labour’s Andrew Little had failed to connect with voters, and on 1 August he stepped down as leader, nominating his 37-year-old deputy Jacinda Ardern to take his place – although she had previously said she had no interest in the job.

But within days Ardern’s campaign of “relentless positivity” set fire to the political landscape. Labour soared in the polls, climbing 20 points in a matter of weeks to overtake National as the preferred party, with Ardern ahead of English as preferred prime minister.

“The Jacinda effect, also known as Jacindamania, has been looming for a long time because she is a politician who has been a rising star and someone with a strong X-factor and charismatic personality for a few years now,” said Bryce Edwards, a political commentator.

“At this point the Labour party seems to have gone from a grey old party with a lot of doom and gloom about them, to a party of Corbyn-esque excitement and similar support.”

The UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn recently sent Ardern a video message of support, urging her to win “for all of us”.

Play Video 0:13 Jeremy Corbyn back’s New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern in video taken by fan

However, in the last 10 days of campaigning, Labour’s momentum has began to falter and it has dropped seven to 10 points in the last three major polls.

The opposition’s campaign suffered significant damage when Ardern announced a tax working group would be set up to explore how best to tackle the country’s housing crisis, refusing to rule out the introduction of new taxes.

A later clarification that no new taxes would be introduced before the next election in 2020 was not enough to stop National from seizing the chance to launch an assault on the party’s economic credibility, claiming there was a NZ$11.7bn (AU$10.7bn/£6.3bn) hole in Labour’s fiscal plan. It was a claim not backed by a single economist, but one English rolled on with.

National, which has promised NZ$2bn of tax-cuts for middle-income earners, also claimed Labour would raise income tax – a charge Ardern labelled “scaremongering” and “lies”.

'I've got what it takes': will Jacinda Ardern be New Zealand's next prime minister? Read more

In the final week the Labour leader pleaded with young New Zealanders – who, alongside women, are her most loyal supporters – to get out and vote.

“We have called and knocked on thousands of doors and now we’re at the critical moment,” she said. “If you’ve seen any of the polls you know this is an election that is going to come down to turnout … please, please make sure you vote.”

For many New Zealanders the twists and turns of the 2017 election campaign have been unsettling, rather than exciting. Many are reluctant to upset the status quo, which has seen New Zealand’s economy survive the global financial crisis and two major earthquakes.

Tamati McLean, 38, a meat-worker from Bulls in the north island, told the Guardian he plans to vote for English because he does not trust Labour to deliver on its promises, which include eradicating child poverty, building 100,000 affordable homes in 10 years, and introducing a water tax.

“Jacinda has been saying all these things but until I see it with my own eyes I am sticking with National,” he said. “I need to see it with my own eyes to become real, and with National, I have seen it – so I believe it.”

Follow the results as they come in on our live blog.</s>TAUPO, New Zealand (AP) - The Latest on New Zealand's national election (all times local):

New Zealanders were voting Saturday in a national election that appears to be a close race between conservative Prime Minister Bill English and liberal challenger Jacinda Ardern.

New Zealand Prime Minister Bill English embraces a National Party mascot while on the campaign trail in Cambridge, New Zealand, Friday, Sept. 22, 2017. English is fighting to keep his job when the nation votes in the general election on Saturday, Sept. 23. (Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald via AP)

Ardern has enjoyed a remarkable surge in popularity since taking over as opposition leader last month. The 37-year-old has been greeted like a rock star at large rallies and has generated plenty of excitement among her fans.

The 55-year-old English has run a more low-key campaign, highlighting his experience and the economic growth the country has enjoyed. He's promising tax cuts for most workers.

Opinion polls indicate there has been a swing back to English in the waning days of the campaign after Ardern had all the early momentum.

Voting continues until 7 p.m. local time with first results expected about 90 minutes later.</s>New Zealanders went to the polls on Saturday after the most hotly contested race in recent history, with changes to the country's openness to migration and trade and the central bank's approach to monetary policy among the possible outcomes.

The ruling National Party and opposition Labour Party had been neck-and-neck in opinion polls and will likely have to rely on minor parties to form a coalition in New Zealand's German-style proportional representation voting system.

A record 1.2 million votes were cast in advance, but neither major party was expected to win an outright majority. Negotiations with minor parties mean it could be weeks before a new government emerges.

"This has been an incredibly engaging and colourful campaign for New Zealanders and that isn't going to be over at midnight," said Bryce Edwards, an analyst at Wellington-based Critical Politics.

"The most likely scenario is we are going to have to wait two weeks when the final verdict is in from the Electoral Commission because it is just going to be so close," he said.

Jacinda Ardern, the charismatic 37-year-old who only became Labour Party leader in August, is vying to become New Zealand's third female prime minister and the youngest in modern history.

Prime Minister Bill English, who oversaw a disastrous election loss for the National Party in 2002, became leader last year after his predecessor John Key's shock resignation. His party has held power for almost a decade.

English and Ardern were expected to maintain fiscal prudence but will probably differ on monetary policy, trade and immigration. That will likely have implications for the New Zealand dollar, the world's 11th most-traded currency in 2016.

Ardern wants to add employment to the central bank's inflation-targeting mandate, which could mean more stimulatory monetary policy. She also wants to cut migration and renegotiate some trade deals, which some worry could hurt two key sources of growth for New Zealand's small, outward-looking economy. Polls closed at 0700 GMT and the day was eerily quiet until then, with the election hardly featuring in domestic news due to stringent restrictions on campaigning on election day. Preliminary results are due at 1130 GMT.

"Special votes", which include ballots from New Zealanders overseas and those who vote outside their home constituencies, will be released on Oct. 7.

These accounted for around 12 percent of the vote in the 2014 election and could have a considerable impact.

Ardern has called on New Zealanders to ditch "auto-pilot" governance, hoping to ride a global wave of change that most recently propelled France's Emmanuel Macron to become its youngest head of state since Napoleon.

She turned her flagging party's fortunes around in a matter of weeks but National, which has pinned its re-election bid on the economy's strong performance, has regained ground in recent opinion polls.

A tight outcome could weigh on the currency on Monday, as could results that foreshadow a change in government, analysts say.</s>WELLINGTON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - New Zealand went to the polls to choose the make-up of its fifty-second Parliament on Saturday, in a close-run race between the governing National Party and the opposition Labour Party.

Doors to the polling booths opened at 0900 local time, though a record number of voters had already cast their ballots in advance. Voting would end at 1900 and the country's Electoral Commission would start releasing results half an hour later.

The centre-left Labour Party, led by recently appointed 37-year-old leader Jacinda Ardern, was vying against incumbent National. The centre-right governing party, led by 55-year-old Bill English, had been in power for almost a decade.

Around 986,000 ballots have already been cast, accounting for almost a third of the 3.2 million New Zealanders on the electoral rolls.

"Special votes," which includes ballots from New Zealanders overseas and those who vote outside their home constituencies, will only be released on Oct. 7.

These could have a considerable impact on the outcome, given New Zealand's large diaspora, and accounted for around 12 percent of the vote in the 2014 election.

New Zealand uses a German-style proportional representation system in which a party, or combination of parties, needs 61 of Parliament's 120 members - usually about 48 percent of the vote - to form a government. This means that minor parties often play an influential role in determining which major party governs.</s>New Zealand went to the polls to choose the make-up of its fifty-second Parliament on Saturday, in a close-run race between the governing National Party and the opposition Labour Party.

WELLINGTON: New Zealand went to the polls to choose the make-up of its fifty-second Parliament on Saturday, in a close-run race between the governing National Party and the opposition Labour Party.

Doors to the polling booths opened at 0900 local time, though a record number of voters had already cast their ballots in advance. Voting would end at 1900 and the country's Electoral Commission would start releasing results half an hour later.

The centre-left Labour Party, led by recently appointed 37-year-old leader Jacinda Ardern, was vying against incumbent National. The centre-right governing party, led by 55-year-old Bill English, had been in power for almost a decade.

Around 986,000 ballots have already been cast, accounting for almost a third of the 3.2 million New Zealanders on the electoral rolls.

"Special votes," which includes ballots from New Zealanders overseas and those who vote outside their home constituencies, will only be released on Oct. 7.

These could have a considerable impact on the outcome, given New Zealand's large diaspora, and accounted for around 12 percent of the vote in the 2014 election.

New Zealand uses a German-style proportional representation system in which a party, or combination of parties, needs 61 of Parliament's 120 members - usually about 48 percent of the vote - to form a government. This means that minor parties often play an influential role in determining which major party governs.</s>Polls opened Saturday in a cliffhanger New Zealand election pitting conservative Prime Minister Bill English against charismatic young rival Jacinda Ardern.

The campaign has been the most volatile in recent memory, with momentum swinging from English to Ardern and then back again.

"This election is going to be really close... it’s a drag race between the two big parties," English said on the hustings Friday, conceding a large undecided vote could prove key.

No party has claimed a majority government in New Zealand’s 120-seat parliament since proportional voting was adopted in 1996 and this election is unlikely to change that.</s>We are an hour away from polls closing in New Zealand’s general election after a campaign that has been more closely fought than anyone would have predicted barely two months ago.

But the catapulting of Jacinda Ardern into the Labour leadership on 1 August reinvigorated what had looked to be a predictable stroll for the National party to a fourth term in government.

Although the polls have swung back in favour of the incumbent prime minister, Bill English, in the closing stages of the campaign, it is still far from clear who will seal enough seats – and the almost certainly necessary support from smaller parties – to lead the next government.

We will have all the latest news, results and reactions on this live blog. Join us in the comments below or find me on Twitter @Claire_Phipps.

And a note to our New Zealand readers: please don’t tell us how you voted or how you think others should (at least not until after the polls have closed). Them’s the rules, you see.</s>New Zealand went to the polls to choose the make-up of its fifty-second Parliament on Saturday, in a close-run race between the governing National Party and the opposition Labour Party.

WELLINGTON: New Zealand went to the polls to choose the make-up of its fifty-second Parliament on Saturday, in a close-run race between the governing National Party and the opposition Labour Party.

Doors to the polling booths opened at 0900 local time, though a record number of voters had already cast their ballots in advance. Voting would end at 1900 and the country's Electoral Commission would start releasing results half an hour later.

The centre-left Labour Party, led by recently appointed 37-year-old leader Jacinda Ardern, was vying against incumbent National. The centre-right governing party, led by 55-year-old Bill English, had been in power for almost a decade.

Around 986,000 ballots have already been cast, accounting for almost a third of the 3.2 million New Zealanders on the electoral rolls.

"Special votes," which includes ballots from New Zealanders overseas and those who vote outside their home constituencies, will only be released on Oct. 7.

These could have a considerable impact on the outcome, given New Zealand's large diaspora, and accounted for around 12 percent of the vote in the 2014 election.

New Zealand uses a German-style proportional representation system in which a party, or combination of parties, needs 61 of Parliament's 120 members - usually about 48 percent of the vote - to form a government. This means that minor parties often play an influential role in determining which major party governs.
Voters in New Zealand go to the polls, electing all members of their House of Representatives and the consequent Prime Minister.