Kerre Woodham: It's up to you to make sure you can vote

The changes to the way we vote. Voters will no longer be able to rock up on election day and register to vote thanks to a law change made last year, and Chris Hipkins isn't happy. The Labour Leader says the Electoral Commission isn't doing enough to make sure New Zealanders are enrolled to vote, and he's concerned that people will turn up on Election Day and find that their votes won't be counted because they're not on the electoral roll. In the past, they could see all the flags, think, “Oh, what's that all about?", wander into a voting station, “Oh, I'm not on the... Oh, I'd quite like to vote, I'm not on the roll." “No worries," the nice people at the voting stations would say. “We'll sign you up." So they'd be signed up, they'd be able to vote, and their vote would then be counted as a special vote.  

At the last election, more than half a million special votes needed to be counted. Not all of these were numpties, of course, who didn't realise that they weren't on the electoral roll, or people who'd been scooped up along with a van full of the halt, the lame, and dispossessed to come along and cast a vote, who were just told, “Look for the pretty colour and tick that box." Some of the people were in hospitals, some were on the unpublished electoral roll, some were living overseas, and just on that, allow me to clamber onto my favourite hobby horse: if you have been living overseas and you have borrowed money from the taxpayer to get your degree and you haven't paid it back, and you don't have a payment plan in place to pay it back, you shouldn't be able to vote. Overseas student loan borrowers owe us $4.5 billion, and only 23% of them are meeting their repayment obligations. If I were King or Queen, I'd be like, “Right, you miserable lot, not one of you gets the right to say how we spend taxpayer dollars until you've paid back the taxpayer dollars you've borrowed, or until you are signed up to a payment plan that ensures you will pay back what you've borrowed. If you're not on a payment plan, get stuffed, your vote doesn't count and you can't cast a vote." So that would be me, I digress, but I will still seethe quietly.  

The Electoral Commission has estimated that around 55,000 votes could be disallowed under the new law. Around 73,000 could have their electorate votes disallowed but their party votes counted because they were enrolled to vote but they weren't at the address listed on the roll. Labour's justice spokeswoman, Camilla Belich, spoke to Andrew Dickens on Drive last night about her concerns. 

“Well, we're really worried that people who just want to go along on Election Day and cast their vote will be prevented from doing that. And the Government will say, “Well, maybe they should have done it in advance," but we know that a lot of people don't think about voting until around the election period anyway, and we're worried that this will limit their ability to participate in our democracy, thus ironically affecting the government's mandate to govern. So we think that politicians should be making it easier for people to vote, not harder, and unfortunately the Government is doing the opposite.” 

So people don't realise they're going to be turning 18 and will need to vote? People don't check whether they're on the electoral roll before the Election? The Commission is about to launch a major awareness campaign. They will be writing to 3.6 million New Zealanders asking them to check their enrolment details are up to date and advising them of the changes that they won't be able to just rock up on Election Day. The only problem is, if your enrolment details aren't up to date, the letter's not going to reach you, is it? It seems to be a bit of a waste of time and money. And is it the Commission's job? I mean, Labour seems to think it is. It's the Commission's job to chase down every last voter in this country and offshore, take them gently by the hand, guide them through the process, and then let them loose in a voting booth.  

If you can't get your act together, then should your vote even count? If you owe the taxpayer $4.5 billion, should your vote count? I would have thought, and go ahead and call me a miserable old bat and a Tory-loving Fox News ZB, but it's up to you, not the Electoral Commission, to make sure you can vote. Voting is a precious, precious right, and when you've had it for so long, you probably take it for granted, but there are people dying right now for the right to vote. If you don't take it seriously and you don't treasure the right to vote, you shouldn't bloody have it. If you're just going to be bundled into a van with the halt, the lame, and the dispossessed and taken down to put a tick next to the pretty colour, should you be voting? No. Not at all.  

You can enrol, you can check, you can update your details online at vote.nz. Even the website couldn't be simpler: vote.nz. Or you can call a freephone number and ask for an enrolment form to be sent to you. That should be all anyone needs. Writing to 3.6 million New Zealanders – if your voting details are up to date, you don't need the letter. If your enrolment details aren't up to date, you're not going to get the letter. It seems utterly pointless and futile and hopeless. Vote.nz. If you can't manage to enrol and it's beyond you to check your details are correct, you know what? Stay home. We don't want you voting.