Election signs in New Zealand’s
2020 mixed member proportional
(MMP) general election

New Zealand’s ninth general election under the country's mixed member proportional (MMP) representation electoral system was held on 17 October 2020. The election was originally scheduled to be held on 19 September, but was delayed for four weeks as a result of an outbreak of Covid-19 in Auckland in mid-August. Two other factors made the 2020 general election extremely unusual. In the first place, more than two-thirds of the people who voted did so prior to Saturday, 17 October. Second, the Labour Party won 50.01 per cent of the party-votes cast in the election: it was the first time since the 1951 general election that any political party in New Zealand had won an absolute majority of the valid votes cast in a parliamentary election. As a result, 2020 also saw a single political party – namely, Labour (as a result of the fact that it had won more than half the votes) – win an absolute majority of the seats in Parliament; it was the first time that this had happened under the country’s proportional representation electoral system.