About the New Zealand Election Study

Through the analysis of political behaviour over eleven successive New Zealand elections, we have been monitoring the democratic process in New Zealand during a period of social and economic change and, most particularly, during the transition between electoral systems: the first past the post (FPP) or plurality electoral system in effect in New Zealand from the origins of the political system, and the new Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system which is in effect from the 1996 election.

The NZES began in its present form in 1990, continued in 1993, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2017, 2020, and its most recent study includes the 2023 general election.

The NZES’s main source of data is questionnaires posted to randomly selected registered electors across the country immediately following each election. Questions focus on voting choices, political opinions, and social and demographic characteristics.

Data from the NZES programme are available for secondary analysis. Data from each election survey can be downloaded from the Australian Data Archive.