New Zealand general election, 1919

1919 general election

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16 (Māori) & 17 December (general) 1919

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All 80 seats in the New Zealand House of Representatives
41 seats were needed for a majority

Turnout

80.5%

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	William Massey	Joseph Ward	Harry Holland
Party	Reform	Liberal	Labour
Leader since	1909	1913	1919
Leader's seat	Franklin	Awarua (lost seat)	Grey
Last election	40 seats, 47.1%	34 seats, 43.1%	N/A
Seats before	39	34	5
Seats won	45	19	8
Seat change	6	15	3
Popular vote	193,676	155,708	131,402
Percentage	35.7%	28.7%	24.2%
Swing	11.4%	14.4%	24.2%

Prime Minister before election

William Massey
Reform

Prime Minister-designate

William Massey
Reform

The New Zealand general election of 1919 was held on Tuesday, 16 December in the Māori electorates, and on Wednesday, 17 December in the general electorates to elect a total of 80 MPs to the 20th session of the New Zealand Parliament. A total number of 560,673 (80.5%) voters turned out to vote.

In 1919 women won the right to be elected to the House of Representatives. The law was changed late in 1919, and with only three weeks notice, three women stood for Parliament in 1919.

They were Ellen Melville in Grey Lynn, Rosetta Baume in Parnell, and Mrs Aileen Cooke in Thames. Ellen Melville stood for the Reform Party and came second. She stood for Parliament several more times, but while generally polling well she never won a seat.

Though Labour Party captured only eight seats it received a quarter of the votes – a shock to conservative minds due to Labour being founded only three years earlier in 1916.

The table below shows the results of the 1919 general election:

Key

A boundary redistribution resulted in the abolition of four electorates:

At the same time, four new electorates were created:

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