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Understand what your two ticks could do…
Under MMP, your party vote and electorate vote do different jobs. But wasted votes, electorate results and overhangs can affect the final make-up of Parliament in ways that aren't always obvious.
Watch the explainers. Hear different perspectives. Test what you know. Explore more election coverage.
Understand the system. Make up your own mind.
Under MMP, your party vote largely determines a party’s total number of seats in Parliament. Your electorate vote decides who represents your local electorate.
If a party wins more electorate seats than its party vote entitles it to, it keeps those extra MPs — and Parliament gets bigger.
That’s an overhang. And it can change the parliamentary maths.
Those extra seats aren’t taken away from other parties — they are added on top.
What really happens to a “wasted” vote?
Under MMP, if a party doesn't reach 5% or win an electorate, its party votes are excluded from the calculation used to allocate seats in Parliament.
That means the parties that do qualify divide the seats between them.
As a result, each qualifying party’s effective share of the vote is higher than its share of the total party vote — which can affect the number of seats it receives.
The Electoral Commission’s own seat calculator distinguishes between a party’s raw party-vote share and its effective party-vote share.
The votes themselves aren’t transferred to another party, but while the votes aren't literally reallocated, the effect can be a reallocation of seats.
