What are special votes? Special votes include overseas votes, postal votes for people both in New Zealand and abroad who could not make it to a polling booth, and dictation votes, which are available to people with disabilities. This is up from just over 293,130 (12.2% of total votes) last time, which included an estimated 38,500 overseas votes. How could special votes change the make-up of Parliament this time? But higher than usual special votes mean there could be a larger shift to the left this time.

Source: Otago Daily Times September 23, 2017 23:37 UTC