'System just sucks': Political scientist says Māori being deterred from voting
RNZ / Sarah Robson
A Māori political scientist says reports people have been removed from the electoral roll or shifted off the Māori roll could discourage some Māori from voting.
Political scientist at Victoria University Lara Greaves was blunt in her assessment of New Zealand's voting system, calling it difficult to navigate, particularly when it comes to updating or changing enrolment details.
"This system just sucks," she said.
Past surveys have shown that a significant minority of people don't have a good understanding of the electoral system at all, she said.
"So I think this whole system is set up in a way that is quite confusing, quite hōhā and quite bureaucratic and a bit annoying overall."
Over the last several days social media has been awash with people checking their voter details only to find they are no longer enrolled or that they cannot find their enrolment details.
Lloyd is a voter on the general roll, he checked his enrolment status on Thursday was unable to find his details and had to reenrol. He told RNZ it was like there was no record of him at all.
"It just seemed very inflexible considering you want everyone to vote ... I hope they get on [and] start advertising and telling people 'please just go and check and you may have to do this from scratch and we're sorry' or something."
Lloyd said he has been voting for about 30 years and last checked his voting details prior to the last election in 2023.
Adding extra steps to the enrolment process just makes it that much harder, he said.
"I just think they should fix the system so it's a little bit smarter and easier."
Lloyd's kōrero follows that of Taryn Utiger, who told RNZ she had been put on the dormant roll despite updating her enrolment details three weeks prior.
"They were like, yup ka pai you're on the Māori electorate roll, everything's good to go you will be able to vote in the local body elections and the referendum. I was like cool, thought that was the end of it, everything confirmed. Then I logged in last night and nothing."
Lara Greaves.
Photo:
Supplied
Greaves said there are realistic barriers between Māori enrolling to vote, including a lack of knowledge among poll workers about the Māori roll and a legacy of colonisation that has discouraged Māori from participating in the electoral system.
"We know that there are barriers out there, and the barriers and perception of barriers do cause lower trust, lower trust in democracy. We go back decades and we can see that there have been a lot of barriers for Māori voters," she said.
"All of this is contributing to a culture where people think 'hey why would I even bother voting they don't want my vote.'"
Greaves said as the facilitator of New Zealand's democracy the Electoral Commission needs to be sufficiently staffed, especially in its IT department.
"Could we just invest in an IT system, could we invest in a computer system, could we invest in more people on the ground and get better results. Democracy does need money, it does need investment, it does need personnel to run it and that doesn't seem to be the case at the moment."
When a system has inequities those inequities tend to affect Māori, Pacific people and migrant communities more, she said.
The Electoral Commission have said there were no technical issues with their online system.
Its deputy chief executive of operation Anusha Guler said it was likely some people had been moved to the "dormant roll" because they had not got in contact with the commission for sometime.
According to the Electoral Commission 2023 General Election Report, the dormant roll contains voters who have been removed from the main roll for their electorate because they no longer live at an address and have not updated their enrolment details.
At the election, there were 96,406 people on the dormant roll and of those, 86 percent were on the general dormant roll while 14 percent were on the Māori dormant roll.
Between 31 July and the 2023 election day, just under 78,000 people moved from dormant rolls to the main roll.
Speaking to media yesterday, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said he was also concerned but the Electoral Commission had said there was no issue and if people were experiencing them, they should contact the commission directly.
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