Red Peak's at 35k on their petition. At least people are now involved. It took horendous and tacky choices to get people off their asses.
I'm not saying it would win, I'm just saying that it has enough support to warrant taking out one of the silverfern ones and replacing it with redpeak.
The nations opinion is that this is a farce and to keep the current flag. At least there is some interest and debate now.
Does it matter? The government didn't do a good job of engaging the populous. People only realised that they should be involved when they saw how dreadful the designs that were chosen were.
Where I do agree with you is that the engagement with the population and execution of this has not been great. It needed more time to dwell on the 40 options. I would have left them up for 3 months at a minimum. Like I say to people that want to get tattoos, draw them on your arm with a marker pen everyday for 3 months and then tell me after that if you still like it and still want it.