The
Electoral Commission has added around 6,300 people to the
electoral roll, after it revealed an issue last week with
how enrolment eligibility was processed for thousands of
people on residence class visas.
“We are sorry that
this breakdown in our processes was a barrier to enrolling
for this group,” says the Chief Electoral Officer Karl Le
Quesne, adding it was “disappointing” it had
occurred.
Le Quesne said the EC had established last
week that some people with residence class visas who had
applied to enrol had been asked to provide information on
their immigration status when they didn’t need
to.
“Our system should have flagged that they were
eligible to enrol.”
He said their team worked to
identify who had submitted valid applications to enrol.
Those people have now been notified they are enrolled and
can vote.
The investigations also identified
approximately 1,200 people who were added to the electoral
roll when they “should not have been.”
“They are
people who were on a temporary entry class visa, such as a
work visa, or their visa had expired.
“Their
applications should have been flagged as ineligible due to
their visa status.”
They will be removed from the roll
before the official count, he confirmed, and notified in
writing.
“If they have already voted in the election,
their vote will be disallowed.”
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The EC will continue
to work on the matter, and there could be a small change in
the numbers reported of those affected.
“Our priority
is to communicate with those affected and fix this problem
so that it does not happen again,” said Le Quesne.
“We
have strengthened our integrity checks since the last
election and it is disappointing that this has occurred, but
people can still have confidence in the overall quality of
the electoral roll for this election.”
People who were
notified by email will also receive a follow-up text. The
emails are being sent from help@enquiries.vote.nz, the text
messages from 5101, and phone calls from 0800 434
637.
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