Comment: There was a time when worrying about voting rights in New Zealand seemed like a quaint concern.
Following a seminar during my undergraduate studies at Otago in the late 2000s, I can remember questioning an Electoral Commission official about increasing Republican hostility towards "get out the vote" campaigns in the United States. Wasn’t there a risk, if potential non-voters in New Zealand similarly tended towards particular demographics, that some political parties would be more interested in promoting democracy than others?
The answer I received, in short, was that New Zealand was not the US. Here, I was politely informed, governments of the right were no less likely to support pro-voter measures than those of the left.
Is that still the case? New Zealand is still not the US, where Republicans have studiously fine-tuned the tools of voter suppression. In contrast, Christopher Luxon’s coalition government is only just starting on the project of tilting the playing field of democracy.
Last month, the government proposed to remove the right of eligible voters to enrol in the 13-day period up to and including election day. At the 2023 election, the total number of special votes included 97,000 people who registered to vote for the first time during the voting period.
Election day enrolments were only introduced from the 2020 election. But the government is not simply rolling back that change. The proposed amendment would require voters’ information to be updated by the end of the 13th day prior to the election. This is taking voter entitlements back more than 30 years.
Analysis by the Electoral Commission suggests that those affected by this change are disproportionately likely to be Māori, Asian, Pacific people, as well as younger voters. A startling 48 percent of Māori voters aged 18 to 19 enrolled or changed their voting details during the voting period.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith defended the change by saying, “The final vote count used to take two weeks, last election it took three … If we leave things as they are, it could well take even longer in future elections”.
This is a hollow justification. In most instances, the outcome of the election is reasonably clear by the end of election night, rather than hinging on special votes. Instead, it is weeks of protracted coalition negotiations that have often delayed a final election outcome. If it is important enough that arrangements between parties are worked through in appropriate detail, why is it intolerable to take slightly longer to count the votes on which the legitimacy of those negotiations rests?
There is reason enough for concern when the government proposes making it harder for already disadvantaged groups to vote. But there is another group who might be particularly affected by these changes—renters.
Rules that make it harder for people to change their enrolment details later in the voting period will have a greater impact on those whose details are more likely to change. Advice to the government noted “about 20 percent of the population had lived in their house for one year or less, and 53 percent had lived in their house for less than five years”.
During the last election, special votes included a further 134,000 people who were enrolled but were able to change their electorate during the voting period. The proposed rule changes would prevent this group from doing so, and it’s hard to say how many of them would still cast their party vote.
Those unable to own their own home already have to contend with a dysfunctional housing market and often tenuous living circumstances. Their concerns should be front and centre of our politics. But at some level, political parties ultimately focus on the votes they think will make a difference. Imposing additional barriers to voting for those with less stable accommodation is akin to turning down the volume knob for these voters’ concerns.
But the more fundamental concern here is the shift away from democracy as primarily a battle of competing ideas and visions towards a contest around the ability of particular groups to exercise their vote. The escalation of this process in the US should serve as a sobering warning for the path the government has started us down.
In recent years, Republican officials have frequently tried to impose strict voter ID laws, with the intent of disenfranchising voters less likely to have such identification. In 2012, one unusually frank Pennsylvanian state senator said such rules would “allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania”.
Republicans have tried to manipulate the placement of voting booths away from areas convenient to Democratic-leaning voters, particularly African-Americans. More recently, state-level battles have arisen over efforts at redistricting (redrawing electoral maps to try to limit the sway of some voters at the expense of others), with the Republican legislative majority in Texas putting forward a highly contentious plan to redraw districts that might swing as many as five congressional seats to Republicans.
These measures are not currently on the table in New Zealand. But what keeps them firmly in the category of a far-off hypothetical is a common commitment to the idea that democracy should be about changing voters’ minds, not about making it harder for them to make their voices heard. The government’s disregard for the democratic rights of its citizens is a clear indication those norms are no longer shared across the political spectrum.
This article was originally published on Newsroom.
Toby Moore is a PhD candidate at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. He was previously a senior adviser to former Minister of Finance Grant Robertson and is on the Labour Party policy council, though the views here are his own.