Eligible voters are missing out on casting their vote, according to community members who spent time in their neighbourhood door-knocking before the new enrolment deadline. — Eligible voters are missing out on casting their vote, according to community members who spent time in their neighbourhood door-knocking before the new enrolment deadline.
Ethan Bidois (Ngāti Ranginui), a Glen Innes community member, says confusing enrolment rules, new laws and online hurdles have been a barrier to Māori and Pasifika in the area.
“Particularly if they’re kaumātua, they won’t understand sometimes how to enrol. Particularly online, we’ve come across people who just don’t understand the systems,” says Bidois.
The Electoral Commission confirmed earlier this week that the provisional rates for enrolment were at 93.6%, behind the enrolment rate of 94.7% at the 2023 General Election.
New enrolment cut-off date confusion
Under the current law, voters can no longer enrol when they turn up to vote, and new rules also restrict voting incentives like free food, drinks and entertainment within one hundred metres of voting entrances during voting hours.
The change follows controversy over kai at Manurewa Marae in 2023, which the Electoral Commission found did not breach treating rules.
Bidois recalls a young voter getting ready to vote to find that they had missed the new cut-off date for enrolments for these elections.
“That artificial deadline has actually just made it worse,
“As someone who works with the Electoral Commission, I have seen people come in, I have seen all the Māori come in [on the] last day, cast a special vote, and then that was their vote... That option’s just gone and those people that I have served in the past no longer exist,” says
He says he saw many, including rangatahi, disengaged from the elections.
“A lot of people just don’t think the government’s going to help them. There’s been people who’ve lived here for years and to be honest, there’s been no change...they just don’t believe that anything is going to change for them so they don’t vote.”
Political expert Lara Greaves has weighed in on the topic, saying the new laws have made voting harder.
“Every single bit of analysis on the change on the law said that it was going to affect young people, it was going to affect Māori and Pacific communities more, that certain groups will be less likely to vote because of the changes,” says Greaves.
Pasifika communities feeling the impacts
Teisa Unga, a community advocate based in Māngere, says she collected 112 enrolments within 2 hours during a community drive for her church at a communal kumala garden.
She says a lack of education and clarity around the rules negatively impacts Pasifika.
“A family who came to look after their little patch actually drove into our barbecue and then was like, ‘What are you guys doing?’ And we’re like, ‘we’re enrolling you to vote’. They’re like, ‘no, no, no, no. We’ll just do it on the day,” says Unga.
She said there was a gap that needed to be filled, as many were not aware of the changes, that they could still submit a party vote if they were enrolled and changed their address, or that they could vote if they were Permanent Residents.
“I think the responsibility has come down to us as community leaders, and I think that’s one [reason] why I pushed for our enrolment drive,” says Unga.
“I think one of the barriers, I think the biggest one... is racism. I think that’s been taught for so long into our systems and into the culture that we live in here, and I think a lot of them believe they don’t have a voice anymore,” says Unga.
Te Ao Māori News reached out to the Electoral Commission for comment, which pointed to the provisional enrolment numbers, saying they show “a good level of awareness of the change in the rules and the new deadline to enrol before voting started this year”.
They say their new initiatives included mobile voting teams, enrolment hubs in the main centres, and small grants to community groups to support enrolment in their areas.
“As the rules are different this year, our focus was on shifting the enrolment activity we usually see during voting to before voting started.
“To do that, we ran a nationwide public information campaign starting in April with the Māori Electoral Option and including the enrolment update campaign in August, right up until the close of enrolment. It included targeted advertising and community engagement.”
