Incoming Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says "big questions" will be asked of the Electoral Commission after the "challenges" on election day.
The Electoral Commission on Friday afternoon revealed the official results for the 2023 general election. This included 603,257 special votes, of which 78,030 were overseas votes.
These results put the National Party on 48 seats compared with 50 on election night. Those two fewer seats mean National and ACT only have 59 seats as a bloc and will need New Zealand First to govern.
Speaking to the media after the results, Luxon reiterated his frustration at the Electoral Commission.
"I think there are a lot of good questions, to be honest, after a Government is formed about the Electoral Commission and what we learnt from this experience," he said.
"I think the fact that we didn't have the how-to-vote cards out early, the fact that there were challenges on the day. I do think three weeks to count special votes is too long, personally."
Luxon said there is nothing more important than getting people the clarity that they want after the election.
He suggested the results should be released daily as the special votes are counted and the Commission should run the local government elections for training.
However, Luxon still has confidence in the Electoral Commission
"After every election, we take a deep review, all parties get to input into it, and I think that's an important process. I think there are some genuinely big questions that we could ask in this review as well."
