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Story: Electoral systems

Seats in the House of Representatives, 1914–1925

  • 1914

  • 1919

  • 1922

  • 1925

This interactive diagram shows the number of seats in the House of Representatives won by each political party in the elections of 1914, 1919, 1922 and 1925. In none of these four elections did the Reform Party (led by Bill Massey) win a majority of the popular vote. Yet in all of them except for 1922 Reform won a clear majority of the seats in Parliament. This was a consequence of the first-past-the-post voting system, which favours major parties and penalises minor parties.

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How to cite this page

Nigel S. Roberts, Electoral systems – Back to first-past-the-post, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/interactive/35671/seats-in-the-house-of-representatives-1914-1925 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Nigel S. Roberts, published 14 June 2012, updated 1 February 2015.