September edition, The New Zealand Herald posted profiles of new members of parliament. This included National's T. R. Beatty, a building contractor from Oamaru who had supposedly beaten Arnold Nordmeyer, a sitting cabinet minister. In initial results, Beatty had a majority of just six votes, but incumbents had strong support by military staff, and Nordmeyer had a final majority of 125 votes. Election results The 1943 election saw the governing Labour Party retain office by a ten-seat margin, winning forty-five seats to the National Party's thirty-four, with one independent. The popular vote was considerably closer — Labour won 47.6%, while National won 42.8%. Holland was stunned by the result, and called for a Commission of Inquiry to look at the servicemens’ vote, but was answered by a report from the Chief Electoral Officer. The Labour vote dropped, particularly in rural areas where the now more prosperous farmers returned to their normal political allegiance. There were strikes by the miners, and resentment at wartime restrictions. Lee’s "Democratic Soldier Labour" party took votes in closely contested seats, and there was a "vast and weird variety of miscellaneous candidates under strange labels". However the forces vote favoured both Labour and Democratic Soldier Labour, see table below. And 22 seats were won on a minority vote. On the morning of election day, overseas counts from London, Ottawa and the Middle East indicated a majority for Labour, but domestic results coming in during the evening suggested to several government officials and even to Walter Nash thal Labour would lose. By 10.30 pm only 35 of the 80 seats were certain for Labour, with Barclay (Marsden) defeated and even Nordmeyer (Oamaru) uncertain. But with 73,000 servicemens’ votes that came in during the day, Lowry (Otaki), Hodgens (Palmerston North) and Roberts (Wairarapa) scraped in. Over subsequent days with 60,000 special votes plus over 20,000 more servicemens’ votes, both Nordmeyer and Anderton (Eden) also scraped in. Fraser, who had campaigned among the troops, quipped that it was not only North Africa that the Second Division had saved. By 7 October, National's lead in four seats had been overturned by the services votes, and by 12 October, it was apparent that the result in six seats (Eden, Nelson, Oamaru, Otaki, Palmerston North and Wairarapa) had been overturned by the services vote. John A. Lee's new Democratic Labour Party won only 4.3% of the vote, and no seats. Bill Barnard