The Electoral Commission says additional data entry errors have been found as it released its amended official results for the 2023 General Election this afternoon.
The agency on Tuesday said some party votes were recorded in the incorrect row for two voting places in Port Waikato and one voting place in Ilam.
In a media release this afternoon, the Commission said additional data entry errors were found, including 15 voting places with data entry errors resulting in small changes for electorate candidate results; one electorate where the data for a small number of special votes had been entered incorrectly; and five voting places entered election day votes as advance voting.
"This did not affect the total numbers of votes for parties or candidates," the Electoral Commission said.
"Checks of party, electorate and special votes have been completed and there are no changes to the overall results, successful candidates or allocation of seats."
In addition, 620 votes in the East Coast electorate that were included in the preliminary count were not included in the official count.
"The votes were in a ballot box at the electorate headquarters and were missed during the official count. The votes have now been counted and added to the electorate totals.
"Corrections have been made, resulting in 693 votes being added to the total number of party votes cast in the election. Candidate votes have increased by 708. Turnout remains unchanged at 78.2%.
"None of these errors affect the electorates where judicial recounts are underway."
Chief electoral officer Karl Le Quesne said "quality assurance steps" have been carried out across the counting, data entry and reporting processes.
"People should have confidence in the integrity of the official count and the amended results," he said.
Le Quesne said the errors, which are "small in scale and do not affect the overall results or allocation of seats", have since been corrected.
"We apologise for these errors. It is disappointing they were not picked up in the quality assurance processes and falls short of our expectations."
The chairwoman of the Electoral Commission board, Jane Meares, said it will commission an independent review into its "quality assurance processes in place and what improvements can be made to ensure this doesn’t happen again".
The amended results will be published in the New Zealand Gazette and on www.electionresults.govt.nz today, the agency said.
Judicial recounts are to be held in the Nelson, Mt Albert and Tāmaki Makaurau electorates.
Following the recount, the Electoral Commission will return the writ to the Clerk of the House of Representatives, allocate list seats in the presence of party scrutineers, and declare by Gazette Notice the election of list members of Parliament.
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