New Zealand's immigration website is reporting increased traffic from US nationals as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump inches closer to the White House today.
In New Zealand, immigration officials told Reuters on the eve of the vote that New Zealand Now website, which deals with residency and student visas, had received 1,593 registrations from United States citizens since Nov. 1 – more than 50% of a typical month’s registrations in just seven days.
Visits to New Zealand Now from the United States were up almost 80% to 41,000 from 7 Oct to 7 November, compared to the same period last year.
Rod Drury, the chief executive of NZ-based global accounting software firm Xero, said the statistics matched up with interest his company has been seeing from prospective U.S. national employees concerned about a Trump win.
Drury said what started as a joke was becoming "a reality".
The States googling "move to new zealand" rn pic.twitter.com/IB2v2Lrcqi
— Rebecca Kamm (@rebeccakamm) November 9, 2016
So how many of you are moving to New Zealand tomorrow? Lol
— Shaaanxo (@xoShaaan) November 9, 2016
Meanwhile, some users in the United States, Canada and Asia saw an internal serve error message when trying to access Canada's immigration website.
Here's how the results stand:
Trump - 244 Electoral Votes
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming
Clinton - 215 Electoral Votes
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland,Massachusetts, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Washington DC
