Election Timetable

Note: all dates and times are in New Zealand Daylight Time (NZDT, UTC 13)

The next Model NZ General Election will be held on Saturday 25th March 2023. Results will be released some time on the Saturday.

The election campaign period will be from 11:59pm on Friday 17th March to 11:59pm on Friday 24th March. All campaign material must be posted to /r/ModelNZCampaigning.

Candidate submission for the election will be posted on Thursday 16th March. Candidate submission will be open until 12:00pm (midday) on Tuesday 21st March. Note: this period overlaps with the campaign period considerably, this is a one-off arrangement due to the condensed timetable for this election. Parties (and any independents) may submit candidates and make any changes at any point during this period (again, this is a very one-off thing).

Parties will be able to submit a party list and any number of electorate candidates. Independent candidates may contest an electorate.

Electorates

The electorates for this election are the 72 electorates used by the irl New Zealand Parliament. A map and list of electorates may be found here. All parties contesting the electorate are assumed to have a faceless nameless candidate in every electorate (except for regional parties), however, parties will only have named candidates where they have nominated a player to stand in that electorate.

Campaign Post Limits

Each party has a limit of 6 party posts. These are for campaigning for the party (list) vote. Party leaders will decide how these posts are divided up between campaigners, but you don't need to inform the Electoral Commission how you're doing that. So long as you don't post more than 6, I don't care. Party vote campaigning will have an effect across the whole country (and no localised effect).

In addition to the 6 party posts, parties may submit a manifesto. This manifesto is not included in the 6 post limit. Manifestos have a strict word limit of 1000 words.

Each electorate candidate has 3 electorate posts which they may use for campaigning in their electorate. These campaign posts will impact the candidate vote in that electorate, as well as the candidate vote and party vote of nearby electorates. Electorate candidates are not permitted to use these campaign posts to campaign outside their electorate.

There is no word limit for campaign posts, however, a recommended maximum length is 500 words. Other types of posts (i.e. images or videos) should be of a similar size.

There are no per-day limits or requirements. Campaigning will have exactly the same effect regardless of when it is posted during the campaign period.

Electoral System

The electoral system is the same as for irl elections. There is a total of 120 seats, 72 are electorate seats and 48 are electorate seats. The overall composition of parliament is determined by the party vote and there is a 5% threshold for winning list seats. This threshold is waived if a party wins an electorate seats. If a party wins more electorate seats than the total number of seats it is entitled to by the party vote, overhang seats are created. If an independent candidate wins an electorate, then that seat is subtracted from the total used for the party seat allocation.

Electorates use the first-past-the-post electoral system. The total number of seats for each party is allocated using the Sainte-Laguë formula.