Labour
is putting extra effort into ensuring people are enrolled to
vote this election, with one of its MPs accusing the
coalition of having an “evil agenda” to disallow its
opponents’ ballots.
Under new changes
by the government, voters will no longer be able to
enrol on election day or in the advance voting period, a
move Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said was necessary to
speed up the final vote count.
Senior Labour MP Damien
O’Connor said the coalition was trying to “cut out and
eliminate” the votes of poorer, more transient
people.
“Absolute bullshit,” he told reporters on
Tuesday. “It’s quite an evil agenda from the right, as we’re
seeing around the world, that’s just been brought into the
New Zealand democracy, and it is an outrage.”
O’Connor
said the enrolment
changes were “undermining basic democracy” and suggested
ministers were out-of-touch for saying voters should be
aware of their obligations.
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“If you’re getting driven
around in limousines and everyone’s running around after
you, that might be the case,” O’Connor said.
“If
you’re an average Kiwi at the moment, facing the cost of
living and struggling to get the basics done, you probably
don’t have time to do it.”
Labour’s campaign chair
Kieran McAnulty said his team was helping people to enrol at
local markets in Wairarapa, saying many were not aware their
details could be out of date if they had recently moved
house.
He said the electoral law changes could have a
“massive” impact on the election result given tight polling,
especially if as many as 400,000 people had their ballots
voided.
“Most
of these people probably won’t vote for this government, and
they know that. That’s why they’re changing the rules, and I
think that stinks.”
McAnulty later dialled back his
comments, saying he had misspoken when accusing the
government of intentionally trying to disenfranchise voters.
He said, however, that that could be an outcome of the law
change.
At the last election, around 450,000 people
either enrolled or updated their enrolment details during
the advance voting period.
New Zealand voters have
been able to do that for decades. That ability was extended
to also include election day itself in advance of the 2020
election.
The Electoral Commission previously
estimated about 55,000 party votes and 73,000 electorate
votes could be disallowed this year, due to a lack of
enrolment.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins reignited
the debate on Monday afternoon, telling reporters the
Electoral Commission was not doing a good enough job
ensuring people were on the electoral roll. In response,
Goldsmith issued a statement, saying the change was
necessary to ensure the final vote count was not further
delayed.
“Late enrolments have placed too much strain
on the system. The final vote count used to take two weeks,
last election it took three. If we left things as they were,
it would likely take even longer,” he said.
“It seems
odd for [Hipkins] to suggest his own voters are inherently
more disorganised.”
Speaking to RNZ on Tuesday,
Goldsmith said people had “plenty of time” to get enrolled.
He said he had “every confidence” the Electoral Commission
had the necessary funds and capability to run a campaign
encouraging people to enrol.
National’s campaign chair
Simeon Brown said its volunteers were also carrying
enrolment forms when door-knocking.
“People know that
they need to enrol to vote,” he said. “There’ll be an
advertising campaign run by the Electoral Commission.
There’s plenty of opportunity for people to enrol. Plenty of
time.”
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