New Zealanders in the US denied the chance to vote

26 Nov 2011

New Zealanders who turned up to vote on election day at the New Zealand Embassy in Washington DC were greeted with a locked empty building and a sign saying that voting had closed before Thanksgiving at 2pm on Wednesday (8am Thursday NZ time), more than 48 hours before the polls opened in New Zealand.

David Small, a New Zealand academic who has been in the US since July on a Fulbright fellowship, described the decision to close the polls two days early as an outrage. “What more fundamental obligation does a New Zealand Embassy have than to provide its citizens with the opportunity to exercise their basic democratic right to participate in an election”.

He said that the person who answered the emergency number listed on the sign (202-439-6399) did not accept that wanting to vote counted as an emergency and told him that “it would not have been worth it” to keep the Embassy open on election day to allow people to cast their votes. According to Dr Small, the official claimed that the decision to close early was advertised on the Embassy website, but no such notification is evident at http://www.nzembassy.com/usa or on the Embassy’s election link http://www.nzembassy.com/usa/news/nz-general-election-and-referendum-saturday-26-november-2011.

Dr Small will be making a formal complaint about the matter to the Chief Electoral Officer and to New Zealand’s Ambassador to the US, Mike Moore.

ENDS

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