Media release: Tactical voting could kill MMP
Wellington (Thursday, 20 August 2026) – At its campaign launch in Gisborne on Sunday, Te Pāti Māori told its supporters to split their votes: candidate votes for the party, party votes for its allies on the left. A new research note by The New Zealand Initiative warns this call could set off a chain of tactical voting that kills MMP.
In Unravelling MMP: How the 2026 election could break the voting system from two sides, Executive Director Dr Oliver Hartwich shows how the strategy plays on the overhang rule. Te Pāti Māori wins its seats through the Māori electorates, so its party votes can be given away. On current polling, the play is worth three or four extra seats for the left bloc.
“Our note is a plea to Te Pāti Māori to reconsider,” Hartwich said. “Once one party games the voting system in the open, restraint becomes a handicap for everyone else.”
The greater danger lies in the response it invites. National is on track to win more electorates than its party vote covers. That would leave close to 900,000 National party votes with no effect on the result.
The note models what happens if centre-right voters respond in kind. If one National party vote in nine moved to a coalition partner, the Government would win a majority that current polling denies it. At one in four, the coalition would hold 69 seats in a Parliament of 132, even though the opposition parties won more votes between them.
“That is the wrong-winner election MMP was introduced to prevent,” Hartwich said. “It would return inside the very system built to banish it, and not one law would be broken. That is the problem: the law itself invites it.”
Christopher Luxon has promised a referendum on MMP if he is re-elected. An election won by gaming the system would write the case for abolition better than any campaign could.
The note calls on the next Parliament to fix the rules before any referendum: balance out overhang seats so that gaming no longer pays.
“An electoral system that punishes sincere voting and rewards clever voting will not stay legitimate for long,” Hartwich said.
The research note Unravelling MMP: How the 2026 election could break the voting system from two sides by Executive Director Dr Oliver Hartwich is available from The New Zealand Initiative website.
ENDS
Dr Oliver Hartwich is available for comment. To schedule an interview, please contact:
Jamuel Enriquez, Marketing and Communications Manager
E: jamuel.enriquez@nzinitiative.org.nz
P: 021 022 34451
_______________________________________________________________________________
About The New Zealand Initiative
The New Zealand Initiative is an evidence-based think tank and research institute contributing to public policy discussion.
Supported by the nation’s leading visionaries, business leaders and political thinkers, we are committed to making New Zealand a better country for all its citizens with a world-class education system, affordable housing, a healthy environment, sound public finances and a stable currency.
https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz | Subscribe to Insights, our weekly newsletter