Why are we waiting three weeks for an election result?

While we know Labour won’t be leading the next government, the country is still a few weeks away from knowing exactly which parties will be calling the shots for the next three years.

The official election result won’t be released for another couple of weeks, while special votes are collected and counted.

Last election, not much hinged on those special votes. But this time, those votes could mean the difference between a two-party coalition or a three-party deal.

So why are we waiting weeks for this confirmation when millions of votes were able to be counted on election day?

Constitutional expert Graeme Edgeler says it’s because New Zealand makes it so easy to vote.

“You can vote anywhere in the country on election day by casting a special vote,” he told Breakfast today.

“You could have voted in London or Washington and they’ve got to send those votes back before you can count them all.

“If you voted in Auckland but you normally live in Dunedin, that vote’s got to travel from Auckland to Dunedin to be counted will all the other Dunedin votes.”

These special votes can be returned up to 10 days after election day.

Because New Zealand makes it so easy for people to vote, this does mean a lot of checking needs to take place before special votes can be counted.

Special votes include people voting from overseas and those who left it late to enrol back in New Zealand.

This means checking those overseas votes came from people who haven’t been away from New Zealand too long to be eligible.

It also means checking newly enrolled voters to make sure they are real people and have the right to vote.

This includes checking Births, Deaths and Marriages for those born in New Zealand, and checking with Immigration New Zealand that people have the right type of visa to vote and have been in the country long enough to do so.

The Electoral Commission is estimating there are 567,000 special votes this time – so, that’s a lot of checking.

And all of those things need to be checked before votes can be counted.

But special votes aren’t the only ballots being checked over the next couple of weeks.

Saturday night’s election results were only preliminary, so Electoral Commission staff are also doing the official count of all votes.

This includes checking every physical copy of an electoral roll used on election day to make sure people haven’t voted twice.

Edgeler said New Zealand’s system is efficient given how much work goes into the official vote count.

“The fact that they get all of that done in two-and-a-half to three weeks is quite amazing.”

So, New Zealand will just have to wait until November 3 to find out if the special votes will change the election outcome.

Edgeler doesn’t think that’s unreasonable.

“Three weeks without a politician - is that really that bad?”