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Candidate and party lists released

Sept 19, 2020 | Media release

17 registered political parties and 677 candidates will be contesting the 2020 General Election.

Nominations have now closed and the Electoral Commission has released the electorate and party list candidates for 2020 online at vote.nz. Advance voting and election day voting place locations are also available on vote.nz.

Registered Parties Seeking the Party Vote

The registered parties seeking the party vote in 2020 are (in alphabetical order):

  1. ACT New Zealand
  2. Advance NZ
  3. Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
  4. Green Party
  5. HeartlandNZ
  6. Labour Party
  7. Māori Party
  8. National Party
  9. New Conservative
  10. New Zealand First Party
  11. NZ Outdoors Party
  12. ONE Party
  13. Social Credit
  14. Sustainable New Zealand Party
  15. TEA Party
  16. The Opportunities Party (TOP)
  17. Vision New Zealand

16 registered political parties contested the general election in 2017.

Candidates

A total of 677 candidates (electorate and list) are standing in this year’s election. This compares with 534 candidates in the 2017 election.

76 candidates are on the party lists only and 72 candidates for registered parties are standing as electorate candidates only. 58 electorate candidates are standing as independents or representing unregistered parties (only registered parties are eligible to contest the party vote).

The number of candidates standing both as an electorate candidate and on a party list is 472.

The electorates with the most candidates are Northland and West Coast-Tasman with 12 candidates each, and the electorates with the lowest number of candidates are Hauraki-Waikato, Tāmaki Makaurau and Waikato with 4 candidates each.

The gender breakdown is as follows: 413 male, 263 female and 1 gender diverse/not specified. In 2017 there were 341 male and 190 female candidates and 3 gender diverse/not specified.

The number of candidates representing parties seeking the party vote are:

Party  List candidates*    Electorate Candidates
ACT New Zealand 57 57
Advance NZ 62 54
Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party      12 9
Green Party 44 60
HeartlandNZ 5 1
Labour Party 81 72
Māori Party 21 7
National Party 75 65
New Conservative 24 72
New Zealand First Party 28 27
NZ Outdoors Party 28 26
ONE Party 39 29
Social Credit 23 19
Sustainable New Zealand Party 11 10
TEA Party 12 9
The Opportunities Party (TOP) 21 21
Vision New Zealand 5 5

* Maximum number on the published list is 65

Enrolment update

Enrolments received before the rolls closed for printing on 13 September have been processed and 3,364,213 people are now on the electoral roll, which is 89.2% of estimated eligible voters. This compares with 88.7% in 2017. 72% of 18-29 year olds are enrolled compared with 69% in 2017.

The easiest way for people to enrol or update their details is online at vote.nz using their New Zealand driver licence, New Zealand passport or RealMe verified identity.

From 3 October when voting starts, they can enrol and vote at the same time at any voting place, including on election day, Saturday 17 October.

Links to more information

Full candidate information is available online here. 

The party lists are online here.

Advance and election day voting place locations can be found on a map here. 

The latest enrolment figures by electorate are available here.  

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