New Zealand election decided by 14% of votes still uncounted

New Zealand woke up Sunday without a clear answer on who runs the country for the next three years. Preliminary results from the Electoral Commission put the National-led coalition at 67 seats in a projected 131-seat parliament — just one more than the 66 needed for a majority.

That razor-thin edge belongs to National, ACT and New Zealand First together. On paper, it's enough. In practice, it isn't final, because roughly 14% of the vote is still sitting in a pile waiting to be counted.

Those are the special votes: ballots from New Zealanders overseas and from people who voted outside their home electorate. They historically lean left, which is why nobody is calling the race yet. The commission plans to release them alongside the final count on November 27.

The wait caps a campaign that ended with National Party leader Christopher Luxon greeting supporters at the party's 2026 election night event at Auckland's Viaduct Events Center on Saturday, per AFP-JIJI.

So for now, New Zealand sits in limbo. The coalition has the barest of majorities on the numbers in hand, the left has a chunk of uncounted ballots that could shift the math, and the real verdict lands in nearly three weeks.