It's a dull election after all

In spite of the bizarreness of the election campaign, the final count of results has produced an unexceptional, business-as-usual result.
The headlines following the count of special votes largely talk about National "losing" the single-party majority that it looked like they had on election night. They now have 60 seats out of 121, and so will need support from ACT and United Future – and likely the Maori Party too. So, incumbency reigns.
And National did not, after all, get the highest MMP party vote ever. In fact National's party vote has dropped slightly from 47.3% in 2011 to 47.04% this time.
It may be seem strange then that, despite a lower party vote, National now has one more seat than it did in the last parliament (up from 59 to 60). That can be explained by a larger percentage of 'wasted' votes this time, thanks to an increase in the Conservative party vote (from 2.65% in 2011 to 3.97% in 2014) and to the Internet/Mana loss. In sum, 6.24% of votes did not count this time, so that means that National's effective party vote was just over 50%.
Labour has ended up on 25.1% (compared with 27.5% in 2011), and the Greens on 10.7% (11.1% in 2011). The Greens are back at square one, with 14 seats, the same as in the last parliament. Labour has lost 2 seats. But Grant Robertson has to stop teasing David Cunliffe about getting "24%".
The big irony is the Internet/Mana result. In 2011, Mana on its own got 1.08% of the party vote, but Hone Harawira won Tai Tokerau, and so held the one seat. The alliance with the Internet Party led to 1.42%, a slightly better party vote, but Harawira narrowly lost his electorate seat to Kelvin Davis by 739 votes. Had Harawira won his electorate again, the Internet/Mana party would have 2 seats in parliament, just like the Maori party has. Indeed, Internet/Mana got a higher party vote than the Maori Party (on 1.32%).
United Future is a dog in the manger, though. While adding one seat to National's support base for a mere 0.22% of party votes sounds like good bang for the buck, UF has also caused the over-hang that makes 121 seats instead of 120, making it harder for National to form a majority. Would Key have been better off without Dunne?
In fact, would National have been better off by giving both UF and ACT the coup de grace? The answer is no: Between them, UF and ACT soaked up 0.91% of party votes. Once you have crossed the threshold to get seats, 0.9% only gets you one more list MP. Instead, National gets 2 house-pets to guarantee them confidence-and-supply support in government. Two for the price of one isn't bad, and there's no promise that those 0.9% of voters would all come National's way if UF and ACT did not exist.