Earlier this week I made a last-minute decision to do some analysis of the New Zealand election, including the new electoral boundaries.
I discovered that no-one appears to have actually calculated the vote shares for the new electoral boundaries drawn since the 2017 election. So I thought I would do that.
I have now finished my boundary file for the 2020 New Zealand election, and you can download it from my maps page, where you can also find the 2008-2011 and 2014-2017 boundaries.
I was hoping to also calculate the redistribution but the data is in such a format that I won’t get it done today, so I’m just publishing the maps. The following maps first show how the general electorates were redrawn, and the second map shows the changes to the Māori electorates.
The number of electorates has expanded from 71 to 72, which includes 16 South Island electorates, 49 North Island electorates and seven Māori seats.
About half the seats were unchanged, with 35 seats having no change to their boundary.
There were no changes at all to the general electorates covering Wellington and the southern half of the North Island, while a string of electorates stretching through Auckland did undergo some minor changes. There were also changes in most South Island seats.
If I manage to put together the calculations later today, I will be sure to put up a new blog post in the morning.
