Voter Suppression: is the Luxon government disenfranchising people?
Electoral Amendment Bill requires voters to be registered before advance polling opens. Would this reduce participation on the Left?
Voter suppression encompasses those laws and regulations that are designed to prevent certain groups from voting or from registering as voters. Methods that have been used by some states in the US include: strict voter ID requirements, shorter early voting periods, restricting voter registration and aggressively purging voter rolls.
The NZ government has introduced a Bill that would close off voter registration on the 13th day before the polling day – that is, before advance voting opens.
Does the government’s proposed law amount to voter suppression?
In recent elections, people who registered at the time they voted had to cast a special vote, as do those overseas or outside of the electorate in which they’re registered. People could register during the advance voting period, and, for the 2020 and 2023 elections, that was extended to allow registrations on polling day itself.
In the 2023 General Election, special votes included over 97,000 people who registered for the first time during the voting period, and nearly 134,000 people who changed electoral districts during the voting period. Voting places were busy on polling day as staff had to enrol people – which takes time.
Last-minute registrations in 2023 caused an administrative logjam, as special votes take more time to process and verify, and there were larger numbers of them. Consequently, the declaration of the final election results took longer than before (20 days rather than 14). On election night in 2020, everyone knew which party would form the government, so the specials didn’t make that much difference. In 2023, incumbent prime minister Hipkins conceded defeat on election night, but coalition negotiations followed, and this was prolonged by the extra time needed for the final count. (An explanation from the Electoral Commission is copied at the bottom of this post.)
The results declared on election night are only provisional, pending the count of special votes. The special votes tend to swing to the Left. For example, in 2017 Labour and the Greens gained one more seat each, and National lost two, after specials were counted, making a stronger case for a Labour/NZ First coalition supported by the Greens. In 2023, the Greens’ party vote was 10.77% on election night (14 seats) and 11.6% in the final count (15 seats).
Special votes as a proportion of total votes have steadily risen:
2011: 10.74%
2014: 12.51%
2017: 16.13%
2020: 16.93%
2023: 20.9%
Voter turnout hit a high of 81.5% (of total enrolled) in 2020, but fell to 77.5% in 2023. Enrolment as a proportion of total eligible population rose, however – but not to the highest rate ever. So polling-day enrolment may have helped boost the number enrolled, but there are numerous other factors involved in participation rates overall. It’s not possible to judge accurately the effect of polling-day registrations on the rates of enrolment and turnout.
Source of graph: Electoral Commission, Report of the Electoral Commission on the 2023 General Election, p. 57.
About a third of people aged 18 to 24 were not yet enrolled in 2023. Many of us just don’t get around to it until our late 20s or early 30s, or even later. Nonetheless, enrolment in NZ is compulsory, while voting is voluntary. They are two distinct things, although the former is necessary for the latter.
So here are two arguments in favour of cutting off new enrolments 13 days before the advance voting booths open:
Administrative efficiency. There’ll be fewer special votes, and counting of special votes can start earlier, preventing the kind of delay seen in 2023. The Bill would allow “the validation and qualification of special votes to begin before election day [which] will help to expedite post-election processes to support a timely vote count” (according to the Bill’s explanatory note). Many people felt that the time required to count special votes in 2023 was frustrating, embarrassing or even disgraceful.
Citizen responsibility. If people are allowed to leave registration till the last minute, then a lot will do exactly that. Why encourage it? People should treat registration as a duty that’s administratively and legally distinct from voting. They should register, and update their address as necessary, before polling booths open. After all, it’s not that hard to do. If you turn 18 or change address to another electoral district during the voting period (when registrations would be closed), you could still cast an ordinary vote – if you’d just registered on time. In other words, “get your act together”.
Naturally, there’ll always be a proportion of the eligible population who don’t get their act together. It’s easy to imagine it dawning on an unregistered person, late in the election period, to go out and vote, and a friend says to them, “Don’t worry, you can register when you go to vote. I did that last time.” The correct news doesn’t always get through. And a hapless person gets irate when they show up at the voting place; then they complain about feeling disenfranchised, and, of course, blame “the government” rather than themselves.
“People are not being disenfranchised, they are merely being required to enrol,” according to a spokesperson for justice minister Paul Goldsmith, quoted by Radio NZ. A lot will depend on how well the Electoral Commission provides clear information about any new enrolment deadline. After all, there must be a deadline at some point, and all voters need to know exactly when it is so that their vote counts.
On the other hand, being “a person who leaves things till the last minute” isn’t a legal disqualification for the franchise! What, then, are the arguments against the proposed registration deadline?
The NZ Council of Trade Unions has said that it amounts to “anti-democratic voter suppression”. They say it’s a barrier to participation, and “the groups most affected [i.e., ethnic minorities and the young] are disproportionately negatively impacted by the Government’s policies”. And there have already been complaints about the enrolment system not working for some people or appearing to lose data. (I had no trouble checking my own registration.)
The Attorney-General, Judith Collins KC, had to advise the House that the Electoral Amendment Bill is inconsistent with the NZ Bill of Rights Act, including “the right vote”. Technically speaking, that’s a slap on the wrist for the Luxon government, but it deserves closer consideration.
Bringing the enrolment deadline back to 13 days before polling day goes against a historical trend towards making voting easier, rather than harder, and it may have a “disenfranchising effect”. One way or another, it will result in some eligible people finding unexpectedly that they’re unable to vote. Telling them it’s “tough luck” may feel satisfying for some, but that doesn’t suffice as a justification in democratic or legal principle.
A registration deadline of one day before polling day had been in place from 1993 to 2017, then last-day registration came in. Making it as early as 13 days before polling day may be unnecessary for the achievement of the administrative efficiencies that are being sought. Three, five or seven days before polling day could be enough, the Attorney-General suggests. She also says: “The Electoral Commission has data that indicates that special votes are more likely to come from areas with larger Māori, Asian and Pasifika communities, and that younger people are more likely to cast special votes” (para. 42.3).
If the processing of special votes caused an administrative logjam in 2023, then why not hire more staff in 2026? Or has democracy become “unaffordable” too?
Given that the three parties in the governing coalition know perfectly well that the special votes lean largely in favour of the Left, and that a proposed registration deadline of 13 days before polling day is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act, it does look as though the government’s proposal amounts to intentional voter suppression. They know exactly which kinds of voters are most likely to miss out.
The Bill would also deny the franchise to all sentenced prisoners, which I’ve covered earlier:
For more on the impact of the release of final votes in November 2023:
Final Election results
Last week started out badly: the ABs were defeated by TMOs (does that stand for Too Many Officials?) and another damaging storm hit. What’s more, the wait for the final election results was proving too much for some. Friday 2pm couldn’t come soon enough!
The Electoral Commission’s explanation:
“We declared the official results for the 2020 and 2023 elections 20 days after election day, compared with 14 days after election day for previous general elections. We needed all this time to process the large number of special votes and enrolment transactions. The amount of time it takes to declare the results is, in part, because of the complexity of largely manual processes, including the counts, and, in part, because of statutory timeframes for the return of special votes. In 2023, the volume of enrolment applications and special votes put additional pressures on the official count. We acknowledge that the time needed for the official count may impact on the time for government formation, depending on how close the preliminary results are on election night.”
Source: Electoral Commission, Report of the Electoral Commission on the 2023 General Election, p. 93. (Bold font added.)
With local government elections coming later this year, I was quoted in a report by Radio NZ’s Kate Green on the apparent decline in local journalism, voter turnout and candidate nominations. There are many uncontested places in the forthcoming elections. In this case, it’s not voter suppression, it’s just a lack of attention and interest. Is “local democracy” turning into “local oligarchy” as older property owners (a minority) elect other older property owners?
And are we suppressing the canine right to vote?
You are right that the 1993 Act allows enrolment up until the day before an election - but it actually goes back to the 1956 Electoral Act. Changing it to 13 days will go against a deeply entrenched cultural understanding of how elections work in NZ.
Our political culture has been about making voting easy and this flies in the face of easy. It is not reasonable, IMO, to expect ordinary people who don’t follow political news closely to keep up with the details of laws that change an event they only take part in every few years.
What the government is doing to suppress the left vote is transparent, disgraceful and undemocratic. Those of us who oppose this move need to organise ourselves to counter it as effectively as possible. Starting now.