Speculation that David Benson-Pope will stand as an independent in Dunedin South continues:
The Otago Daily Times understands private polling being undertaken in the electorate shows Mr Benson-Pope would win in a canter should he decide to stand.
His name recognition is high and people feel he was a good electorate MP who was treated badly by the party and trade unions.
If he did win the seat it would create, or add to, an overhang. That would help the centre left because if Helen Clark can stomach Winston Peters she could no doubt put aside past concerns with Benson-Pope to help her retain the reins of power.
Homepaddock 
I haven’t checked to see if I’m right or not but I have a sneaky feeling that if Benson-Pope wins Dunedin South as an independent then that won’t be an overhang seat. He’ll need to register a “David Benson-Pope Is Freaking Awesome Party” then an overhang would be created.
Not totally sure – need to research that.
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Well, that was easy. If an independent candidate wins an electorate then…. (copy and paste)….
The number of seats available for proportional allocation is reduced from 120 by the number of electorate seats won by independents or candidates from parties not contesting the party vote.
http://www.elections.org.nz/voting/mmp/mmp-faq.html
So, if Benson-Pope wins (which, I don’t actually think would happen but I’m often wrong), the party vote would be used to allocate 119 seats. The party that loses out on an seat would be down to mathematical chance.
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Bren – thanks for the research. I was using Jim Anderton as a prescedent but of course he’s registered the Jim is Freaking Awesome Party.
You may be right about him not winning – people who say they’ll vote for a person can find they can’t not vote for the one from their usual party of choice once they’ve got the ballot paper in front of them.
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[…] Tip: Homepaddock Tags: Claire Curran, David Benson-Pope, Dunedin South, Electoral Act, Helen Clark, liars, Winston […]
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