The way we’re voting is changing, and one expert believes our politicians need to change with the times.
Overseas voting, and voting for people who require telephone dictation, opened earlier this week, while general advance voting will open tomorrow.
It follows several elections in which the proportion of voters casting a ballot early has risen dramatically, with 67% of votes cast in advance in 2020, up from 14% in 2011.
According to Massey University politics professor Richard Shaw, that means voters have less time than they used to for considering policies, and parties need to get their commitments and policies out earlier.
“We don’t always vote trading off policies, but it does raise issues if there are significant policy positions,” said Shaw.
Shaw said that mattered “around fiscal policies for example, which both parties still have a lot to say on”.
Labour released their fiscal plan on Tuesday, while National released theirs on Friday.
“We probably need to update our statutory thinking, our policy thinking, and our political thinking generally about the election day.”
The rise in early voting also means that most votes are now cast while advertising and election coverage is still permitted, as opposed to the election day blackout that currently stands.
And as well as traditional schools and libraries, voting places will also be set up in marae, kura, churches, mosques, and supermarkets.
There will also be voting stations in international airports, both for people leaving the country and coming back in.
Shaw said none of that diminishes the importance of voting.
“oting still counts as an act of citizenship, we’re just performing it slightly differently across a different timescale.”
Over the past three elections, both voter enrolment and turnout has jumped.
In 2011, turnout hit a low of 74% – a figure not seen since the 19th century. In 2020, it had jumped to 82%, with advance voting and increasing poll station access seen as key reasons for that.
The Electoral Commission is still hard at work training people to administer polling stations, and count the votes.
Early voting also means early counting, and when the polls close at 7pm on October 14, many of those results will be released shortly afterwards.
The full and final result won’t be known for another fortnight, once all the special votes have been checked and counted.
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