Just Days Left To Enrol To Vote: ‘Think About Things That Matter To You’

Matthew
Theunissen Journalist

There
are just days left to enrol to vote (enrolments close
midnight Sunday October 25) and the Electoral Commission is
sending teams out to shopping malls, markets, libraries
railway stations – even hospitals – to try and enrol the
350,000 New Zealanders yet to sign up.

As of Thursday,
91.2 percent of eligible voters were enrolled. But young
people were significantly lagging behind with just 65.5
percent of 18 to 24 year olds signed up to have their
say.

RNZ joined one of the commission’s teams at
Auckland’s Sylvia Park and did a walk around with staffer
Yebin Hong.

We didn’t have much luck finding anyone
who wasn’t enrolled until we came across several groups of
young men hanging out near the glitzy sneaker
shops.

They
fobbed us off until we met AJ, who said he would enrol but
was only 17. Yebin helpfully informed him he can still sign
up to the provisional role, at which point his plot was
foiled.

“I was joking, I’m 20,” he admitted.

Of
the dozens of people that we asked, it was only the young
men we spoke to who weren’t enrolled.

We caught
23-year-old Karim, who was out buying a new pair of shoes
for a job interview. Although eligible, he didn’t vote in
the last general election.

He reckons young people
sometimes don’t vote because they’re disillusioned with
politics, or aren’t engaged with the process.

He said
he could still be persuaded about who to vote for.

“I
haven’t fully decided yet but I have my preferences,” he
said.

At
the mall’s Electoral Commission registration hub, community
engagement advisor Hannah Edwards says they’re still
enrolling about 60 people a day.

In her role, she
sometimes meets people who are very disengaged from the
political process.

“The key message is just, ‘think
about things that matter to you’,” she said.

As those
well as enrolling to vote, some shoppers, like Anna, are
double checking their details are up-to-date at the mall’s
election hub.

“I’m trans so it’s kind of important for
me to vote because there have been recent bills that have
been threatening my existence, basically. So it’s important
for me to vote.”

Chief electoral officer Karl Le
Quesne says they’re pulling out all the stops to get as many
people enrolled as possible, with a keen focus on young
people.

“We’re just asking for everyone who has
anything to do with young people – parents, uncles, aunties,
teachers, grandparents – check in with young people, check
if they’re enrolled and if they’re not, tell them how easy
it is to do it.”

He says the commission is doing
everything it can to get the message to people that they
need to be enrolled to vote by midnight on Sunday 25
October.

They’ve sent out millions of letters and
e-mails, as well as provided a lot of resources to people in
the community to get the message out.

The commission
has a target of getting of getting to 94.7 percent enrolment
– the number that was achieved during 2023
election.

“There’s a a bit of a way to go but but
we’re not slowing down at all we’re increasing our efforts
on this,” says Le
Quesne.

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