Know What You're Voting For

New Zealanders are pretty good at turning out to vote on election day, but there are a couple of concerns. One is that voting is lowamong young people and another is that it can be hard to keep track of all the policies and people we need to know about to cast an informed vote.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Electoral Commission announced that over 120,000 people aged 18 to 24 hadn’t enrolled to vote. This would mean one in four young people wouldn’t be able to join in the election.

Every three years, before the election, Maxim Institute joins in with the chorus of groups calling for everyone to vote and urging voters to learn about the parties and candidates before they do so.

In 2011 the nzvotes website will function as a portal to a whole lot of resources that will help people learn about the candidates andparties they have to choose between at the election. It will also link them to resources to find out about the voting systems on offer in the Referendum.

Along with this we have created a few videos to help kiwis recognise the need to pay attention to politics and learn about what the different parties stand for before casting their vote.

One of the videos was made by taking a camera into the centre of Auckland and asking a whole lot of passers-by to join in an entertainingquiz. http://vimeo.com/31823291

The website will be made public at 1pm on Thursday 10 November.

ENDS

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