New enrolments from Māori more than double for 2026 election
More than double the number of Māori have enrolled to vote in this election than the previous election in 2023, new provisional data shows.
Yet - despite the boom in new Māori enrolments - overall almost half a million people of all ethnicities who are eligible to vote have not yet signed up.
Almost half of these are young people aged between 18 and 24.
The Electoral Commission ramps up its advertising campaign today and from next week, it will start sending out enrolment packs to the 3.6 million people who are enrolled.
Fresh, provisional data shows that as of Sunday, more than 10,000 people of Māori descent had enrolled to vote. Most of these new enrolments were for the Māori roll (around 7000) compared to around 3000 for the general roll.
Ahead of the 2023 election, there were around 3000 new enrolments by people of Māori descent - of which around 2100 were for the Māori roll.
More than 16,000 Māori have switched between the Māori and the general roll this election, compared to around 14,500 ahead of the last election.
Candidates contest either a Māori or general seat.
The fight for the Māori seats is already heating up with Labour declaring it will go “all out” to win them back after Te Pāti Māori swept six of the seven seats in 2023. Labour secured Ikaroa-Rawhiti with Cushla Tangaere‑Manuel.
Attention will be on Te Tai Tokerau, which will be a four-contestant race: former Te Pāti Māori MP and incumbent Mariameno Kapa Kingi for her new party, Te Tai Tokerau Party; Te Pāti Māori’s new candidate, Aperahama Edwards; Willow-Jean Prime for Labour and Hūhana Lyndon for the Greens.
The Government recently changed the country’s election laws, including stopping same-day enrolments and requiring voters to enrol at least 13 days before election day. This deadline is October 25.
One motivation for the changes was to speed up the counting process after voting - the commission estimates the changes will save around three days.
The commission’s chairman Simon Moore KC said these were “significant changes”.
Justice Simon Moore is now retired from the High Court but still plays an active role on the Electoral Commission Board. Photo / Dean Purcell
“With those new rules, the importance of getting the message out - that enrolment closes 13 days before voting day - that is October 25 - we have to get that message out.”
There are an estimated 440,000 people of voting age not yet enrolled to vote. Of these, around 200,000 are aged between 18 and 24.
The commission also needed to recruit 27,000 people to run operations across the country.
Recruitment had been underway for around three weeks and the commission was about halfway there, he said.
“That makes us the single largest employer at that time by some very considerable margin.
“In order for us to be able to engage that number of people, we need to have [job] applications in the order of 50-60,000. With that number of engagements, we’ve got to do reference checks, police checks, they have to be interviewed, there has to be contracts and there has to be training, so that’s huge.”
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.
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