ALT Image of text. Partial transcript follows: Why does counting the special votes take so long? In short, because we make voting easy in New Zealand. In New Zealand, you can enrol on voting day. When you enrol, you don’t need to provide your birth certificate or other documents, you just fill in a form. When you vote you don’t need to take photo ID with you. In New Zealand you can vote at any voting place in the country, or even from overseas. In some countries, if you want to cast a special vote, you have to do it maybe two weeks before the election. In some countries (including the UK!) you get told the one voting place which is your voting place which is where you have to vote. In New Zealand, you can cast a special vote on election day. And hundreds of thousands of people do. But taking a step back, what we’re doing now isn’t ‘counting the special votes’. The Electoral Commission is officially counting all of the vote. They do it twice (not including election day), just to make sure.

ALT Image of text. Partial transcript follows: Now, these are checks they do for everyone who enrols. For you and me, that was a while ago, back when we enrolled. For someone who enrolled on Saturday when they were voting for the first time, they’ll be doing those checks now. When they’ve done that: When they’d found the votes of the three people in your electorate who actually double voted and laboriously taken those six ballots out of the piles of votes they’re currently in; When they’ve confirmed which special voters are actually eligible to vote and which aren’t; When they’ve waited for the special votes cast in Auckland and meant for Dunedin to make their way from Auckland to Dunedin; When the votes cast in person in the New Zealand High Commission in London have been flown back to New Zealand and distributed between their electorates, and checks have been done to make sure those voters haven’t been away from New Zealand too long, and then the last possible day for special votes to be