00:00:00
Speaker 1: Yes, good morning to you. It's now seven minutes after seven, so early voting started as of today. That means the time to enrol has now closed. And there's fears that hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders will not be able to vote in this year's election because they didn't make the deadline. And for the first time, you will not be able to rock up to a station and enrol on the day. So Carla Kane is the Chief Electoral Officer at the Electoral Commission and joins you now. Carla, good morning to you.
00:00:25
Speaker 2: Good morning.
00:00:26
Speaker 1: On a score of one to ten, how do you think your team did at getting people enrolled to vote?
00:00:31
Speaker 2: Oh, look, we've put in a huge effort. We were working late last night. We were receiving lots of enrolment forms. So it's been a pretty big effort over about three months, actually, not just this last week or two. All right.
00:00:43
Speaker 1: So just how many people will not get a voice this year?
00:00:48
Speaker 2: We're still processing all the enrolment forms, so we're going to do a daily update on what the enrolment rate and numbers are looking like, but it's probably going to be until about Thursday before we've processed all those enrolment updates, and we can give a clearer number then. Okay.
00:01:05
Speaker 1: Is this good enough, really, not knowing the figure right now, not having as many people enrolled to vote as we had last election?
00:01:15
Speaker 2: When we get a paper-based enrolment form, we've got to scan it into our system. We've then got to do a whole lot of checks to make sure that it's accurate. And it's only then that we can finalise the enrolment. So we need to take the time to make sure we get it right and that it's accurate. So that's a really important part of the process of when people update their enrolment.
00:01:36
Speaker 1: OK, so I've had a correspondent from BAS earlier today asking, why is it so tricky to find somewhere to vote? because he's googled where can I vote today, and all that came up was a map with polling booths, but you have to click on each one to find when they are open, and most are open random days and times. Is it easy enough to vote?
00:01:57
Speaker 2: Look, we think it is, and if anyone's having any trouble, they can call us on our free 0800 number, and we'll be able to help them out. The key thing to understand is that Usually the first day of voting, there's not a large number of people voting and it can even depend on the weather on the day. So we try and spread our voting places and opening hours across the whole advance voting period. But Elections Day is still our biggest day. That's when we'll have over 2,300 voting places open. So there'll be one close to most people.
00:02:27
Speaker 1: 94.7% have actually enrolled. Is that a good number?
00:02:35
Speaker 2: At the moment, it's sitting on about 92.5%. It's not quite where we want it. But as I said, we're still processing all those enrolments that came in Saturday and Sunday. So we're expecting that rate to go up.
00:02:46
Speaker 1: So with that 92.3 odd, do you think, though, it's up to those people to get out and use their vote. It's one thing enrolling. The other thing is to get out and use your vote. Do you think it's going to be a high or low turnout?
00:03:00
Speaker 2: Well, we're planning for a reasonably high turnout because we have to. Anything could happen, but it really depends on people's intentions to vote and how they're feeling about the election and so on. So it's always a bit of an unknown, but we do plan for a high turnout.
00:03:15
Speaker 1: And what is your message to voters? Is it go as early as you can, like Ben I talked about just before the news, who's going to vote today at nine, or do you wait until the day or an easier time?
00:03:26
Speaker 2: Well, look, we spread out the voting places in there as they're open so people can go when it suits them because a lot of people do have to fit it around work. So we have some voting places that are open right through into the early evening and others that are open earlier. It just depends on the circumstances in the community. So I think the key thing is check on our website, vote.nz, or call our 800 number to find where your nearest voting place is. We're going to have posters up in supermarkets and we'll be advertising in community newspapers as well. And then if you've got an EasyVote card, take that along. You don't need it to vote, but it just makes it a little bit quicker for us to find you on the electoral roll and mark you off.
00:04:06
Speaker 1: There have been some people in the media complaining about the difficulty to get the EasyVote card.
00:04:13
Speaker 2: We worked really hard this time around to get almost all of them out before voting started, so if you'd given us your email address, we've emailed it to you. And if you hadn't, we've posted it to you. So all of those have been delivered. We're going to do a supplementary run this week, and that was for people who enrolled after RIT day. So there's still a few more to come, but most of them have been delivered. Good, Owen.
00:04:37
Speaker 1: I thank you for your time today. That is Carl McCain, and Carl is the Chief Electoral Officer at the Electoral Commission. It's 11 after seven.
Speaker 1: Yes, good morning to you. It's now seven minutes after seven, so early voting started as of today. That means the time to enrol has now closed. And there's fears that hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders will not be able to vote in this year's election because they didn't make the deadline. And for the first time, you will not be able to rock up to a station and enrol on the day. So Carla Kane is the Chief Electoral Officer at the Electoral Commission and joins you now. Carla, good morning to you.
00:00:25
Speaker 2: Good morning.
00:00:26
Speaker 1: On a score of one to ten, how do you think your team did at getting people enrolled to vote?
00:00:31
Speaker 2: Oh, look, we've put in a huge effort. We were working late last night. We were receiving lots of enrolment forms. So it's been a pretty big effort over about three months, actually, not just this last week or two. All right.
00:00:43
Speaker 1: So just how many people will not get a voice this year?
00:00:48
Speaker 2: We're still processing all the enrolment forms, so we're going to do a daily update on what the enrolment rate and numbers are looking like, but it's probably going to be until about Thursday before we've processed all those enrolment updates, and we can give a clearer number then. Okay.
00:01:05
Speaker 1: Is this good enough, really, not knowing the figure right now, not having as many people enrolled to vote as we had last election?
00:01:15
Speaker 2: When we get a paper-based enrolment form, we've got to scan it into our system. We've then got to do a whole lot of checks to make sure that it's accurate. And it's only then that we can finalise the enrolment. So we need to take the time to make sure we get it right and that it's accurate. So that's a really important part of the process of when people update their enrolment.
00:01:36
Speaker 1: OK, so I've had a correspondent from BAS earlier today asking, why is it so tricky to find somewhere to vote? because he's googled where can I vote today, and all that came up was a map with polling booths, but you have to click on each one to find when they are open, and most are open random days and times. Is it easy enough to vote?
00:01:57
Speaker 2: Look, we think it is, and if anyone's having any trouble, they can call us on our free 0800 number, and we'll be able to help them out. The key thing to understand is that Usually the first day of voting, there's not a large number of people voting and it can even depend on the weather on the day. So we try and spread our voting places and opening hours across the whole advance voting period. But Elections Day is still our biggest day. That's when we'll have over 2,300 voting places open. So there'll be one close to most people.
00:02:27
Speaker 1: 94.7% have actually enrolled. Is that a good number?
00:02:35
Speaker 2: At the moment, it's sitting on about 92.5%. It's not quite where we want it. But as I said, we're still processing all those enrolments that came in Saturday and Sunday. So we're expecting that rate to go up.
00:02:46
Speaker 1: So with that 92.3 odd, do you think, though, it's up to those people to get out and use their vote. It's one thing enrolling. The other thing is to get out and use your vote. Do you think it's going to be a high or low turnout?
00:03:00
Speaker 2: Well, we're planning for a reasonably high turnout because we have to. Anything could happen, but it really depends on people's intentions to vote and how they're feeling about the election and so on. So it's always a bit of an unknown, but we do plan for a high turnout.
00:03:15
Speaker 1: And what is your message to voters? Is it go as early as you can, like Ben I talked about just before the news, who's going to vote today at nine, or do you wait until the day or an easier time?
00:03:26
Speaker 2: Well, look, we spread out the voting places in there as they're open so people can go when it suits them because a lot of people do have to fit it around work. So we have some voting places that are open right through into the early evening and others that are open earlier. It just depends on the circumstances in the community. So I think the key thing is check on our website, vote.nz, or call our 800 number to find where your nearest voting place is. We're going to have posters up in supermarkets and we'll be advertising in community newspapers as well. And then if you've got an EasyVote card, take that along. You don't need it to vote, but it just makes it a little bit quicker for us to find you on the electoral roll and mark you off.
00:04:06
Speaker 1: There have been some people in the media complaining about the difficulty to get the EasyVote card.
00:04:13
Speaker 2: We worked really hard this time around to get almost all of them out before voting started, so if you'd given us your email address, we've emailed it to you. And if you hadn't, we've posted it to you. So all of those have been delivered. We're going to do a supplementary run this week, and that was for people who enrolled after RIT day. So there's still a few more to come, but most of them have been delivered. Good, Owen.
00:04:37
Speaker 1: I thank you for your time today. That is Carl McCain, and Carl is the Chief Electoral Officer at the Electoral Commission. It's 11 after seven.
