On 7 November the screens will fill with bars, maps and percentages. Here are the four questions I am going to ask before I believe any of them.
Election night is exciting. It is also the night when it is easiest to believe something that is not quite true yet.
Voting closes at 7pm on Saturday 7 November. Not long after, numbers start appearing. Here is my plan for reading them.
## Question 1: Is it preliminary or official?
Everything you see on election night is preliminary. It is a fast count of the votes that can be counted quickly. Special votes take longer because each one has to be checked first. The official results are scheduled for Friday 27 November.
So "preliminary" is not a boring word in the corner of the screen. It is the most important word on it.
## Question 2: How much has been counted?
A party can look like it is winning when only a small share of votes is in. Early votes are not a fair sample of the whole country. I am going to look for the "votes counted" figure before I look at anything else.
## Question 3: Which vote is this?
An electorate result tells you which candidate is ahead in one area. The party vote is what is used to work out each party's share of Parliament. They answer different questions, and they are not added together.
## Question 4: Is this a result or a prediction?
Some graphics show what commentators think will happen. That is a guess, even when it is a clever one. Under MMP, parties often need to work together to form a government, and a TV prediction is not an agreement between parties.
## My question for you
If you ran a news channel, what would you make sure was on screen every time you showed a number? I would put "preliminary" in big letters. What would you add?
Information correct as at 29 October 2026.