No Special Votes Completely Undemocratic

“A lot of people who are about to go overseas for the next few weeks are upset they can’t vote before they leave home. It’s not fair that people can’t advance vote in local body elections as they can in general elections,” says Cameron Brewer, who’s standing to be councillor for Auckland’s new Orakei ward.

“Some people in my ward are disgusted they won’t be able to participate in what is the biggest municipal election in New Zealand’s history because they’ll be overseas and it’s just too hard. It can be organised with some difficulty if you’re going to be at a fixed location. The electoral office will post you the papers to then fill out and post back - hopefully in time. However if you’re travelling around Europe on a bus or cruise ship, there’s no way you’ve got a forwarding address. The system of no advance voting is completely unacceptable and frankly undemocratic.”

Mr Brewer says in general elections people going away can organise to vote in advance up to 17 days before the election day.

For the pending local body elections ballot papers get posted out on Friday 17 September. Electors then have three weeks to vote and post the papers back, with the result announced on Saturday 9 October.

“If they’re going to stick with the postal ballot system for local body elections, which only encourages tampering and apathy, then we must allow for advance voting. In this day and age, there’s absolutely no excuse for prohibiting voters from exercising their right to vote. The reality is people are travelling more and the voting system needs to allow for this. We should be encouraging people to vote, not making it logistically impossible.

“Some people have told me they are forced to get their family or neighbour to collect their mail and vote on their behalf, and that in itself is not right. We have to do better in 2013,” says Cameron Brewer.

ENDS

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