Analysis: Getting rid of same-day enrolments won’t solve the Electoral Commission’s headaches around vote counting, writes Q+A presenter Jack Tame.
It’s easy to forget how strange the backend of last October really was.
After all of the hoopla and excitement of election night – a likely new government, a likely new Prime Minister and Tony vs Toni – New Zealand was forced to wait another three weeks until the election results were confirmed in order for coalition negotiations to begin in earnest. MPs twiddled their thumbs and the caretaker government essentially treaded water.
But this week’s Auditor-General report into the election suggests the Electoral Commission was lucky to even make that final deadline.
The total number of special votes was much higher than expected and alongside the delays in processing late enrolments, the Commission found itself with a gargantuan workload in the period after the election. Some electoral staff reportedly worked 70-hour weeks.
The final quality assurance checks, which should have been done over two days, were instead pushed into the few hours before the results were released. Inevitably, the Commission made errors.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says the problems may warrant a reassessment of same-day enrolments, which were first introduced in New Zealand for the 2020 election.
Late enrolments, where people either enroled to vote or updated their details during the voting period, increased 43% on the 2020 election to 454,000 people.
Instead of taking the allocated five days to process voter enrolments, it took 11 days to get that work done.
Election day enrolments were not the issue
But in considering the Minister’s suggestion, it’s important to note that less than a quarter of the late enrolments were made on election day.
If same-day enrolments hadn’t existed in the 2023 election, Electoral Commission staff would have still been processing more late enrolment changes and special votes than they did three years earlier.
Of all the points and recommendations in the Auditor-General’s report, this is perhaps the most valuable: the Electoral Commission needs to update its special vote and late enrolment projections, and build much more fat into the system to better handle the workload.
It isn’t specifically the same-day enrolments causing the system to buckle; it’s the total number of late enrolment changes (and special votes) made throughout the entire voting period.
The 2020 election was highly unusual, and any projections and forecasts made on the basis of its voter trends are only worth so much.
Now that we have the experience of 2023, there’s no excuse for the Electoral Commission not to expect and appropriately resource significant late enrolment and special vote processing in 2026.
The Auditor-General’s report lays out many recommendations which should improve election processing without the need to scrap same-day voter enrolments. The Electoral Commission should be supported and resourced to make these changes before any move to reverse same-day enrolments.
The 2023 election wasn’t perfect, but the lessons for the Electoral Commission are relatively clear.
And ultimately a democracy should do everything in its power to enable its citizens to vote.