Latest news with #BillofRights
Malay Mail
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Malay Mail
New Zealand moves to end same-day registration, ban prisoner voting; attorney general warns of rights impact
WELLINGTON, July 29 — The New Zealand government today introduced a law that will prevent people from enrolling to vote on election day and bar prisoners from casting their ballot while in jail, in a move critics say could reduce voter participation. The proposed law, which passed its first of three readings in parliament on Tuesday, will allow people to enrol to vote only up to 13 days before an election. Currently potential voters can enrol up to and on election day. The law will also ban all prisoners from voting and require voting to open 12 days ahead of the official election day. 'This bill overhauls a number of outdated and unsustainable electoral laws. The package of amendments will strengthen the system, helping to deliver timely election results, manage the costs, clarify rules and provide more efficient services to voters,' said Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith, who proposed the bill. However, a report by Attorney General Judith Collins concluded that the bill 'appears to be inconsistent' with the country's Bill of Rights, including the right to freedom of expression and the right to vote. The changes are, in part, prompted by delays in results at the 2023 election, when it took nearly three weeks before an official result was released due to the high number of special votes. Special votes are cast by New Zealanders living or travelling overseas, voting outside their constituency or newly enrolled. The Attorney General's report, which was released publicly on Friday, said in the last election special votes included over 97,000 people who registered for the first time during the voting period, and nearly 134,000 people who changed electoral districts during the voting period. 'This gives some indication of the number of people who may be affected,' said Collins, who is a member of the ruling party. Duncan Webb, a lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party opposing the bill, on Tuesday called it 'a dark day for democracy'. 'Politicians should be making it easier for people to vote, not harder. It's how we make sure that everybody's voice is heard, that everyone gets a say,' he said. — Reuters
Time of India
21 hours ago
- Politics
- Time of India
New Zealand introduces law that make it harder to vote
New Zealand's government has introduced a controversial law impacting voter access. The legislation, already through its first parliamentary reading, will end election day voter enrollment and prohibit prisoners from voting. Critics argue these changes, prompted by delays in the 2023 election results, will suppress voter participation, while the Attorney General raises concerns about inconsistencies with the Bill of Rights. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads The New Zealand government on Tuesday introduced a law that will prevent people from enrolling to vote on election day and bar prisoners from casting their ballot while in jail, in a move critics say could reduce voter proposed law , which passed its first of three readings in parliament on Tuesday, will allow people to enrol to vote only up to 13 days before an election. Currently potential voters can enrol up to and on election law will also ban all prisoners from voting and require voting to open 12 days ahead of the official election day."This bill overhauls a number of outdated and unsustainable electoral laws. The package of amendments will strengthen the system, helping to deliver timely election results, manage the costs, clarify rules and provide more efficient services to voters," said Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith , who proposed the a report by Attorney General Judith Collins concluded that the bill "appears to be inconsistent" with the country's Bill of Rights , including the right to freedom of expression and the right to changes are, in part, prompted by delays in results at the 2023 election , when it took nearly three weeks before an official result was released due to the high number of special votes are cast by New Zealanders living or travelling overseas, voting outside their constituency or newly Attorney General's report , which was released publicly on Friday, said in the last election special votes included over 97,000 people who registered for the first time during the voting period, and nearly 134,000 people who changed electoral districts during the voting period."This gives some indication of the number of people who may be affected," said Collins, who is a member of the ruling Webb, a lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party opposing the bill, on Tuesday called it "a dark day for democracy"."Politicians should be making it easier for people to vote, not harder. It's how we make sure that everybody's voice is heard, that everyone gets a say," he said.
The Star
21 hours ago
- Politics
- The Star
New Zealand introduces law that makes it harder to vote
WELLINGTON (Reuters) -The New Zealand government on Tuesday introduced a law that will prevent people from enrolling to vote on election day and bar prisoners from casting their ballot while in jail, in a move critics say could reduce voter participation. The proposed law, which passed its first of three readings in parliament on Tuesday, will allow people to enrol to vote only up to 13 days before an election. Currently potential voters can enrol up to and on election day. The law will also ban all prisoners from voting and require voting to open 12 days ahead of the official election day. 'This bill overhauls a number of outdated and unsustainable electoral laws. The package of amendments will strengthen the system, helping to deliver timely election results, manage the costs, clarify rules and provide more efficient services to voters," said Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith, who proposed the bill. However, a report by Attorney General Judith Collins concluded that the bill 'appears to be inconsistent' with the country's Bill of Rights, including the right to freedom of expression and the right to vote. The changes are, in part, prompted by delays in results at the 2023 election, when it took nearly three weeks before an official result was released due to the high number of special votes. Special votes are cast by New Zealanders living or travelling overseas, voting outside their constituency or newly enrolled. The Attorney General's report, which was released publicly on Friday, said in the last election special votes included over 97,000 people who registered for the first time during the voting period, and nearly 134,000 people who changed electoral districts during the voting period. 'This gives some indication of the number of people who may be affected,' said Collins, who is a member of the ruling party. Duncan Webb, a lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party opposing the bill, on Tuesday called it "a dark day for democracy". "Politicians should be making it easier for people to vote, not harder. It's how we make sure that everybody's voice is heard, that everyone gets a say,' he said. (Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
Straits Times
21 hours ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
New Zealand introduces law that makes it harder to vote
Find out what's new on ST website and app. The proposed law, which passed its first of three readings in Parliament on July 29, will allow people to enrol to vote only up to 13 days before an election. WELLINGTON - The New Zealand government on July 29 introduced a law that will prevent people from enrolling to vote on election day and bar prisoners from casting their ballot while in jail, in a move critics say could reduce voter participation. The proposed law, which passed its first of three readings in Parliament on July 29, will allow people to enrol to vote only up to 13 days before an election. Currently, potential voters can enrol up to and on election day. The law will also ban all prisoners from voting and require voting to open 12 days ahead of the official election day. 'This Bill overhauls a number of outdated and unsustainable electoral laws. The package of amendments will strengthen the system, helping to deliver timely election results, manage the costs, clarify rules and provide more efficient services to voters,' said Minister of Justice Paul Goldsmith, who proposed the Bill. However, a report by Attorney-General Judith Collins concluded that the Bill 'appears to be inconsistent' with the country's Bill of Rights, including the right to freedom of expression and the right to vote. The changes are, in part, prompted by delays in results at the 2023 election, when it took nearly three weeks before an official result was released due to the high number of special votes. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Asia Extreme weather turns Beijing into rain trap; 30 killed, over 80,000 evacuated Asia Thai army accuses Cambodia of violating truce Singapore NDP 2025: Enhanced security measures to be put in place around the Padang Business SIA shares tumble 6.8% after first-quarter profit slide Sport World Cup winner Fabio Cannavaro among list of top names for Singapore football coach World Trump says many are starving in Gaza, vows to set up food centres Business BYD tops Singapore car sales in first half of 2025 with almost one-fifth of the market Singapore ST Explains: What we know about the Tanjong Katong sinkhole so far Special votes are cast by New Zealanders living or travelling overseas, voting outside their constituency or newly enrolled. The Attorney-General's report, which was released publicly on July 25, said in the last election special votes included over 97,000 people who registered for the first time during the voting period, and nearly 134,000 people who changed electoral districts during the voting period. 'This gives some indication of the number of people who may be affected,' said Ms Collins, who is a member of the ruling party. Mr Duncan Webb, a lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party opposing the Bill, on July 29 called it "a dark day for democracy". "Politicians should be making it easier for people to vote, not harder. It's how we make sure that everybody's voice is heard, that everyone gets a say,' he said. REUTERS
Scoop
a day ago
- Politics
- Scoop
On National's Bid To Steal Future Elections
Other countries are expanding the ability of their citizens to vote. In Britain (from which New Zealand has long taken its constitutional cues) the franchise is being extended to 16-year-olds. In this country, we're headed in the opposite direction. The Luxon government is taking steps to make it significantly more difficult for people to cast a vote, and prisoners will lose their right to vote altogether. No valid reasons are being given for these changes. Formerly, we were world leaders in the ease of voting. People could register and vote on Election Day. But once the new legislation is passed, voters will need to have enrolled some 13 days prior to Election Day. At the 2023 election, 110,000 people registered and voted on Election Day. This was a 46% increase of same-day turnout at the prior election. During the two weeks before election day, 454,000 people registered to vote. Given those numbers, the changes being made by the coalition government will inevitably have a significant impact on the election result. No doubt, same day registration has put added pressure on the Electoral Commission to process the votes accurately, and on time. Any human error is one too many. Yet as the Auditor General's report on the 2023 election noted, 'The relatively small number of errors did not affect the overall outcome.' In the one electorate where a journalist had queried the calculations, the Auditor-General further noted, the subsequent Electoral Commission revision 'did not change the candidate or party vote outcomes.' So, at the last election, despite the sharply increased influx of votes close to election day, only minor errors occurred and these had no impact on any of the results. Yet rather than fund the Commission to be better able to process this welcome late rush of ballots, the Luxon government is choosing instead to stop latecomers from being able to vote at all. It is hard to see this as anything other than a bid by the coalition parties to skew the 2026 election results to their own benefit. When more hurdles are put in front of voters, the young and Māori stand to be disproportionately affected. No doubt it is a sheer co-incidence that those groups are statistically more likely to vote for the centre-left and/or for Te Pāti Māori. Voting in prison In addition, a National-led government will once again deny all prisoners the right to vote. Under successive Labour governments, prisoners could vote if they were serving sentences of less than three years. In 2010, the Key government abolished that right, after ignoring a critical report by the-then Attorney General Chris Finlayson on the steps being proposed. Finlayson indicated that a blanket ban on prisoner voting would be inconsistent with section 12 of our Bill of Rights legislation. In fact, [Finlayson] argued, the supposed objective of the Bill – to deter serious offending – was 'not rationally linked' to the Bill's own provisions to impose a blanket ban on prisoner voting. Reason being, serious offenders are already banned from voting by the existing law. As for everyone else : ' It is questionable that every person sentenced to any period of punishment is a serious offender. People who are not serious offenders will be disenfranchised…' The blanket ban, Finlayson concluded, cannot be justified. Having pointed out the irrationality of denying all prisoners the vote, Finlayson then went further, to show how unjust even the existing provisions could play out in practice: The avowed purpose of the Bill is to deter serious offending. Yet as Finlayson pointed out, under its provisions someone sentenced to home detention would still be able to vote, but someone sentenced to jail for the very same offence would be disenfranchised. Moreover, a serious violent offender sentenced to two and half years in jail would not lose their right to vote if their sentence fell – purely by chance – into the period between elections. Yet by the same token, someone sentenced to a week in jail for not paying their parking fines would lose their right to vote, if they were unlucky enough to be sentenced at the wrong point in the electoral cycle. 'Justice, to state the obvious, should not be reduced to such games of chance.' This shabby episode is about to be played out again. This time around, a critical report by the current Attorney-General, Judith Collins is also being ignored. Similar violations of human rights will recur. To be clear: for people in jail, the sentence they are serving is the punishment for their offence. Tacking on punitive extras like losing their right to vote is petty and vengeful, and will do nothing to aid the re-integration of prisoners back into society on their release. In other respects, the Bill being proposed by Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith repeats some of the same anomalies identified 15 years ago by Chris Finlayson. People on home detention will still be able to vote but those in jail will not, even if they have committed the same offence. Thankfully, those on remand will still be allowed to vote. Not many people in prison do vote. Only 84 prisoners nationwide voted in the 2023 general election, out of circa 5,000 who were eligible to vote, and 41% of those voters identified as Maori. (Part of the overall low turnout can be attributed to the cumbersome process of enrolling and casting a special vote.) Although it is a very small cohort, the high proportion of Māori among the bloc of imprisoned voters merits further research into the rehabilitative role - for some offenders at least - of cultural identity and voter participation. To repeat: the changes being proposed look highly dubious. Instead of expanding the franchise and encouraging more people to vote, steps are being taken to limit participation, and by measures likely to penalise the current government's political opponents. Footnote One: Should 16-year-olds get the vote? Of course. They will inherit the effects of government actions and inactions, especially on climate change. There is a myth about young people not being interested in politics. In reality, the deeper problem is that politicians routinely fail to engage with the problems – climate change, high rents, too few jobs etc – that matter to them. As a percentage of those aged 18-24 eligible to vote, just over two thirds do so. Yet that participation rate has been improving, arguably as a result of last minute, Election Day registration. That conclusion is backed up by this chart – which shows that 74% of enrolled 18 to 24-year-olds voted in 2023. That turnout was higher than for every age band of enrolled voters between 30 and 45. Meaning : young people turned up on polling day, enrolled, and voted right then and there. National now wants to stop them from being able to do so. Surely, we should be trying to make it easier for the young to get enrolled, and vote. Instead, those in power are doing the reverse. As for the obvious fairness issues involved in allowing 16-year-olds to doubt, having civics lessons while 16 to 18-year-olds are still in school could be a significant help in fostering the habit of voting. Yet on those statistics cited above, the problem of non-voting by enrolled voters only really begins to kick in between 25-29, and gets worse thereafter until advanced middle age. This suggests that 20-somethings learn pretty quickly that their voices are being habitually ignored by those in power, so why bother keeping up the charade? Now.. and thanks entirely to this government, any initially disinterested/disillusioned voters who have second thoughts and engage with party politics only at the very last minute will no longer be able to enrol on Election Day. Smoking is a habit The tax break for Big Tobacco (now being extended from one to three years by New Zealand First Minister Casey Costello) is being estimated to cost about $300 million. Initially, NZF had promised that this tax break would be for only a one year trial, and be subject to research as to whether more people were actually switching from harmful nicotine to the monopoly line of heated tobacco products being sold by Philip Morris. This ' trial' and related tax giveaway has now been extended until 2027 at least. Meanwhile, as Labour's Ayesha Verrall has pointed out, the public health system – which could have made far better use of that $300 million giveaway– staggers on while under-funded, under-staffed, and under-paid. When it suits, changes get fast tracked. Not this time. For Big Tobacco, exceptions and foot dragging are the rule. Rastafarians at least, are upfront about the addictive nature of their herb of choice. Here's King Still, deejaying on top of a rhythm laid down by Clancy Eccles and the Dynamites:
