Nearly half a million eligible voters face new pre-election enrolment deadline

Summarised by Centrist

About 440,000 eligible New Zealanders are not yet enrolled to vote and will face an earlier deadline under new electoral rules intended to produce a faster election result.

Voters must enrol by October 25, 13 days before election day. Unlike in 2023, anyone who leaves it until polling day will not be able to enrol and cast a valid vote.

Electoral Commission chairman Simon Moore KC described the change as significant.

“With those new rules, the importance of getting the message out, that enrolment closes 13 days before voting day, that is October 25, we have to get that message out,” he said.

The scale of the task is substantial. Of the estimated 440,000 voting-age New Zealanders who remain unenrolled, about 200,000 are aged between 18 and 24.

That means almost half of those potentially affected are young adults, a group that traditionally enrols and votes at lower rates than older New Zealanders.

The government says ending same-day enrolment will allow votes to be processed more efficiently and shorten the count by approximately three days. 

The provisional figures also show a sharp increase in Māori enrolment. More than 10,000 people of Māori descent have newly enrolled, compared with about 3000 before the 2023 election.

Roughly 7000 joined the Māori roll and 3000 selected the general roll. More than 16,000 Māori voters have also switched rolls, up from approximately 14,500 at the previous election.

The Commission must also recruit 27,000 election workers and expects to process between 50,000 and 60,000 applications.

“With that number of engagements, we’ve got to do reference checks, police checks, they have to be interviewed, there have to be contracts and there has to be training, so that’s huge,” Moore said.

Read more at The NZ Herald

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