The Electoral Commission has run out of hard-copy brochures informing people how to enrol to vote and has warned it could take “a few months” to print more.
By Justin Wong, Local Democracy Reporter
The shortage comes just over six months before October 25 - the final day to enrol to vote in November’s general election.
In a letter to Chief Electoral Officer Karl Le Quesne and Commission Chairperson Simon Moore, the Greens’ democracy and electoral reform spokesperson, Celia Wade‑Brown, said she tried to order 200 brochures from the commission’s website after distributing her existing copies, but received an error message instead.
Wade-Brown was later told by a commission staff member that they had run out of brochures and were arranging a reprintbut it might “take a few months for us to get them”.
But they could still dispatch copies of other printed forms and brochures, such as enrolment forms and a flyer about the Māori roll.
A commission spokesperson said the brochure was updated for the election and in the process of being translated to te reo Māori and printed, with it being a priority. The existing brochure was available in multiple languages to download online, they added.
“Given the significant changes to electoral law by the Government to the voter enrolment period, the availability of up-to-date enrolment resources is important for maximising voter participation and minimising disenfranchisement,” Wade-Brown said.
Her letter also said she was concerned about not having the enrolment forms available in te reo Māori. She had been told it was not possible for this year’s election because there would need to be big changes to IT systems and processes so a non-speaker could process the forms.
But Wade-Brown said she failed to see why it could not be available in te reo because, other than the occupation box being removed in an update, the data entry would not require te reo fluency.
“The lack of a form in te reo Māori is inconsistent with the wide range of materials provided by the Electoral Commission in te reo Māori, and is exclusionary given the growing generation of te reo Māori speakers.”
She was also concerned that the enrolment form in large print still had not been changed to remove an obsolete box to enter the voter’s occupation, even though the law was updated last December and the standard form changed by February.
“Disabled people already face greater barriers to participating in our electoral processes, and the oversight in failing to update the Large Print Enrolment form is disappointing.”
The Post previously reported the commission was fighting deadlines to get its voting systems certified and still had to train up 28,000 people to run the election.
Local Democracy Reporting is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air
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