[2] The Act required every successful candidate in a parliamentary election to receive an absolute majority of votes.
If a majority was not obtained on election night, a second ballot between the two highest-polling candidates was required to be held seven days later (except, in 1908 only, in the Bay of Islands, Bay of Plenty, Kaipara, Marsden, Motueka, Taumarunui, Tauranga, Wakatipu, Wallace, and Westland electorates, where any required second ballot would be held fourteen days later).
[3] An early draft of the legislation proposed considering a margin of more than 500 votes sufficient to be interpreted as a majority, but this was struck out by Parliament in its consideration of the bill.
The Second Ballot Act 1908 was passed 37–14 in the 16th session of the New Zealand Parliament in late 1908, ahead of that year's general election.
Ward expected that the two-round voting system would result in all second ballots to be between Liberal and conservative independent (later Reform) candidates.
[1] A new Reform government came to power between the 1911 and 1914 elections, when independents who had previously supported the Liberal Party changed allegiances.