Track the live results of the 2023 election with our interactive map

Voting has closed and election officials are tallying the ticks to determine who will lead the country for the next three years.

Although preliminary results will be released throughout the evening, the final results will not be reported for another three weeks.

Officials began counting advance (early) votes this morning, but extra time is needed to tally up the special votes, which can come in up to 10 days after election day. A special vote is the opposite of an “ordinary” vote. If you were not enrolled or needed to update your enrolment details, for example, you would have cast a special vote.

Plenty can change between election day and when the final results are declared several weeks later. In 2020, 488,776 people cast valid special votes, accounting for 16.9 per cent of all votes cast in the election.

The final count increased the Labour Party’s vote share by 0.9 percentage points to 50 per cent of the total vote, entitling the party to 65 seats, one more than it had on election night. The National Party’s vote share dropped 1.2 percentage points to 25.6 per cent, reducing the party’s initial allocation of 35 seats by two to 33 seats.

Te Pāti Māori’s final party vote increased 0.2 percentage points, enough to get the party two seats in the house, one more than they had on election night.

Since 1999, the parties that have gained seats between election day and the declaration of the official results have all been left-leaning.

In 1999, special votes significantly affected the Green Party, which had no seats in Parliament on election night but gained seven seats in Parliament, including one electorate seat, after special votes had been counted.

The results of the 2023 general election will be released progressively from 7pm on October 14 on the Electoral Commission’s website. The official final results will be declared on November 3.