Hamilton West by-election: Official results show how much National beat Labour by, number of disallowed votes

  • 21/12/2022

The official results for the Hamilton West by-election are in, confirming National's Tama Potaka's win over Labour's Georgie Dansey.

According to the Electoral Commission's official results, which also include special votes, 15,104 votes were recorded in the December 10 by-election. 

Of those, 6974 votes (46 percent) went to Potaka, while 4541 (30 percent) went to Dansey. The ACT Party's Dr James McDowall received 1515 (10 percent), while former MP Dr Gaurav Sharma received 1242 (8 percent). 

The rest of the votes were spread among other candidates, while 37 were informal votes.

Turnout was 31.4 percent, which compares to the turnout of 40.5 percent in the recent Tauranga by-election, 43.9 percent in the Northcote by-election, 30 percent in the Mt Albert by-election and 38.5 percent in the Mt Roskill by-election.

A trend has continued of more people voting before the official polling day at the Hamilton West by-election, the Electoral Commission said, with 67.3 percent of votes cast in advance of December 10.

"The Electoral Commission expects to return the writ showing the successful candidate on Tuesday 17 January 2023, assuming there are no recounts."

At the 2020 general election, when turnout was higher, Dr Sharma won the seat as the Labour candidate with 52 percent of the vote. National's candidate Tim Macindoe, the sitting MP, received 36 percent of the vote. ACT's candidate received 3 percent of the vote in 2020.