Explainer: How your votes are counted on election day

Explainer: Election day is Saturday and close to 4 million enrolled Kiwis will have their say on picking the next government.Who's going to count all those votes, how do they do it and why does it take so long to get a final result?Here's what you need to know.What happens when the votes are counted?All votes are counted by hand and not by machines.A preliminary count is done on election day and then the official count begins afterwards, with the final results expected by Friday, 27 November.Several things are counted - advance votes cast before election day, ordinary votes cast on election day and special votes.Before voting closes on Saturday, early ordinary votes made during advance voting are taken to electorate headquarters and the count begins. Those results won't be released until 7pm.Votes made on election day itself are counted after polls close at 7pm and released as preliminary results.Candidates and parties are also allowed to appoint scrutineers, who can witness the early and election day vote counts.Most votes are counted on election day and on election night.Supplied / Electoral CommissionWhy do official results take so long?Early votes and votes on election day are counted quickly, and make up the preliminary results. The Electoral Commission's target is to have 50 percent of the results available by 10pm and 95 percent by 11.30pm on election day.Then there are the special votes, which require extra checking and time to process. Special votes are by anyone not on the electoral roll or unpublished roll, living overseas or voting away from a polling place, because they can't get to one.They have a stricter checking procedure and any overseas votes can also take longer to process.In 2023, it took three weeks to count special votes to confirm the election results.Special votes have to be returned to the electorate they were cast for before they're counted. Every special vote declaration is checked to make sure the voter is enrolled and eligible to vote.The Electoral Commission expects as many as 700,000 special votes this year.The commission has already said that it expects to take about 20 days to do the required checks and deliver final election results.Once the count is complete for each voting place during the official count, the totals are recorded on a certificate signed by the returning officer and a Justice of the Peace.For the official count, the commission will also "scrutinise the roll" - comparing every copy of the electorate roll in each electorate to identify any voters who may have voted more than once. If any person suspected of double-voting is found, there's an investigation and any voter found to have voted more than once is not included in the final official count.The official count is entered into New Zealand's Election Management System, which was developed in the country and "regularly undergoes independent security testing and certification", according to the commission.Finally, the official count is declared by the Chief Electoral Officer.Who does all this checking?Those who count the votes are Electoral Commission staff and not volunteers.The commission said all staff were fully trained, including on how to count the votes.What happens to my voting paper?After the count, the voting papers are sealed in envelopes and then put in boxes closed with tamper-proof seals. They're held in secure storage for six months after the election, in case ballots are needed for a legal challenge.After six months, those papers are taken out of storage, shredded and destroyed. Official representatives from Parliament and the Electoral Commission will witness the destruction.Voting papers are held in secure storage for six months after the election.Supplied / Electoral CommissionWho can be a scrutineer?Electorate candidates can appoint scrutineers to observe vote counting - but candidates themselves and MPs cannot be scrutineers, and list-only candidates can't appoint them.When it comes to special votes, they can observe the checking of special vote declarations, and the official count of overseas, remote and dictation votes in Wellington, and checking of special vote declarations in any designated enrolment office of the Electoral Commission.Party secretaries of registered parties contesting the party vote can also appoint scrutineers to observe parts of the counting process under certain circumstances.According to the Electoral Commission's handbook for scrutineers, those chosen are allowed in a designated area within voting places. They are not allowed to obstruct voters or staff, and while they can photograph certain records, they cannot touch any voting materials or photograph voters.Election staff check a voter roll during a simulation exercise.Supplied / Electoral CommissionCan you get a recount?If you're an electorate candidate, you can apply to a District Court judge for a recount. You must apply within three working days of the official results being declared and include a deposit of $1022.22 with the application.The judge must then start the recount within three working days.There is no threshold laid out in section 180 of the Electoral Act 1993 that requires how close the vote has to be for a candidate to apply for a recount, so theoretically, any losing candidate could apply for one.If there's a tie in the electorate, a recount is automatic.There were three judicial recounts in the 2023 election - for close races in Nelson, Mt Albert and the Māori electorate Tamaki Makarau. None of those recounts changed who won the seat.For the party vote, only the party secretary can apply for a recount. That can either be for a specific electorate or for every electorate.A recount for every electorate requires a $92,000 deposit to be paid.An election petition can also be filed as a formal legal challenge to a result and it's the next step if someone wants to challenge an outcome beyond the recount process.One such petition was filed in 1999 in the Coromandel electorate by National incumbent Murray McLean over Green candidate Jeanette Fitzsimons' 250-vote victory. The court upheld Fitzsimons' win.What if there are mistakes in the election?The Electoral Commission says it runs parliamentary elections "that are free and fair", and their goal is to "provide an effective and impartial electoral system that New Zealanders can understand and trust".Following the voting process, probes can be made, if issues are reported.After the 2023 election, the auditor-general launched an investigation, after more than two dozen voting places made errors when confirming the final election result. The errors did not result in any major changes to the overall results or allocation of seats once amended.In the final report, that investigation found the final check of the official election result was done in a few hours under extreme pressure.The auditor-general identified several factors he thought had contributed to a situation where mistakes could be made and go undetected, including an increase in late enrolments and special votes.Enrolments this year ended on 25 October, instead of carrying on to election day, as in 2023."These were errors made by people under pressure," chief electoral officer Karl Le Quesne said at the time of the 2023 investigation. "While the errors were too small to affect the results, we deeply regret they occurred."