{ { Infobox election
| election_name = 1917 Bay of Islands by-election
| country = New Zealand
| flag_year = 2010
| type = presidential
| ongoing = no
| previous_election = 1915 Bay of Islands by-election
| previous_year = 1915 by-election
| next_election = 1919 New Zealand general election
| next_year = 1919 general
| election_date =
| turnout =
| image1 =
| candidate1 = Vernon Reed
| party1 = Reform Party (New Zealand) | popular_vote1 = elected unopposed | percentage1 = | swing1 = | map_image = | map_size = | map_alt = | map = | map_caption = | title = Member | after_election = Vernon Reed | before_election = William Stewart | before_party = Reform Party (New Zealand) | after_party = Reform Party (New Zealand) | result = Reform retains electorate }} The 1917 Bay of Islands by-election was a by-election held on 19 March 1917 during the 19th New Zealand Parliament in the Northland electorate of Bay of Islands. The by-election came about because Vernon Reed's win in the 1914 general election had been declared void by an electoral court, and Reed barred from standing for a year. The seat was won by William Stewart, Reed's Reform Party colleague, in the resulting 1915 by-election. When Reed became eligible again, Stewart resigned and Reed won the 1917 by-election unopposed.
Background
Reed was first elected to the Bay of Islands electorate in the 1908 general election as a candidate of the Liberal Party. The resulted in significant losses for the Liberal Party and Joseph Ward's government survived a no-confidence motion on the casting vote of the speaker only. Ward chose to resign, though, and made way for a new liberal Prime Minister, Thomas Mackenzie. Reed expected to be part of the new cabinet and the media discussed that he might be appointed Attorney-General due to his legal background. Reed was invited to cabinet, but he did not join because the majority of the cabinet did not support his views of freehold. When the Mackenzie government faced a no-confidence vote in July 1912, Reed voted with the opposition, thus effectively joining the Reform Party.
Reed's switch to Reform caused problems in the . George Wilkinson had been the Reform candidate in the Bay of Islands electorate in 1911, he was keen to represent Reform in that electorate in 1914, and he had the backing of the local electorate committee. Reed also wanted to run for Reform, and as he had the backing of the party head office, he was declared the official Reform candidate. Reed narrowly won the election against Te Rangi Hīroa of the Liberal Party, with Wilkinson coming third. Bill Veitch, at the time a United Labour Party MP in Wanganui, claimed that Wilkinson had been under immense pressure from the Reform Party not to contest the Bay of Islands election, and that William Massey had promised him a seat in the Legislative Council in return, an allegation later picked up by other media outlets but also implicating Reed in the affair.
This complaint was elevated to a formal election petition in April 1915 by Waipapakauri resident Edward Evans and Edward Parsons of Waipuna on the Whangaroa Harbour, who engaged a King's Counsel, John Findlay, and a solicitor, Bill Endean, as their counsel. Reed used his brother John, also a King's Counsel, as his legal representative. The primary complaint was that Reed had, through an intermediary, tried to convince Wilkinson to retire by promising him a seat on the Legislative Council, and to reimburse him for his election campaign expenses. On 8 May 1915, the petition was upheld Justice Chapman and Justice Hosking, the election declared void, and Reed barred from standing in another election for one year. Since 1913, there have been over 100 by-elections held in New Zealand, and this was one of only five cases where a general election was declared void by the courts.
1915, Stewart won the 8 June 1915 by-election against George Gardiner Menzies of the Liberal Party.The New Zealand Herald was the first newspaper to report on 5 March 1917 that Stewart had resigned; the effective resignation date is recorded as 2 March. The editor of the North Otago Times offered the following explanation: