Graeme Edgeler: Constitutional lawyer says late enrolments aren't the reason for a slow election vote count.

Late enrolments aren't the reason for a slow election vote count. 

That's according to constitutional lawyer Graeme Edgeler, who agrees with comments from the Electoral Commission that changes to voting rules won't speed up the process. 

The government's ending same-day enrolments and requiring people to enrol 13 days before polling day. 

But Edgeler told Ryan Bridge that it won't solve the delay. 

He says checks for people on the unpublished roll or voting out of their electorates also delay the process. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Proposed changes won't make vote counting happen any faster. This
is according to the Electoral Commission, which says they'll still
need twenty days to count Luxon, though he still reckons
the process needs to be sped up.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Oh well, we expect them to speed up the voting
pretty simple. You don't just move it back two weeks
and then say we're going to stick with the same deadline.
We're living in twenty twenty five. And I just suggested
that vote can be counted a hell of a lot
faster than what we've experienced in New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Constitutional lawyer Graham edeler with me. Now, hey Graham, hello,
it can it be made faster? Is he right?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
No? Like maybe a day or two, but not really.
I mean it's not that vote counting takes long time
in New Zealand. It takes about this long everywhere. Australia
had an election a few months back, sort of from
where to go the election and then the official result
took them thirty four days. Finally our last election was
thirty three. You know, it's the difficulty is and the problem,

(00:54):
or in part the solution in New Zealand is we
let people cast a special vote on election day. Anywhere
in the country you can vote on election day. A
lot of other countries don't do that. If you're in
the United Kingdom, you cast a vote the parliamentary election
there you're told your voting booth is the school hall
at this street. You can only vote there and you

(01:16):
have to vote there on election day. And if you
want a special vote, you're going to have to cast
it a couple of weeks in advance if you're going
to be away. And they do then the same sorts
of checks on specialist, was this person eligible, were they
really enrolled, and all those sorts of things that we
do here, but they get to do them a couple
of weeks earlier. The reason that votes take this long,

(01:36):
it's not the counting of them, it's the checking of
the special votes. It's this person really entitled to vote.
And it's not just people enrolling late. It's people are
on the unpublished role or people who are in Auckland's
per work, but they're normally live in Wellington. And so
because we say you can vote anywhere in the country,
that's when we have to start doing a lot of
those checks. So why does the people haven't cast them

(01:57):
that day.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Graham, Why then is the guvern proposing these changes and
the hope of speeding things up when they could have
just done what you said, I.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Don't know, you know, it's I really don't like. I mean,
there's there's a formal deadline of how long they can
take to count these and we changed it a couple
of elections ago. We didn't notice the dissinder's last victory
because it was so far ahead it didn't matter how
long it took the count we knew who had already won.
They're not proposing to change the deadline. They extended it

(02:27):
by I think it was five or ten days or
something like that back six eight years ago. Whenever it was.
It's something deadline law.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Is there something that's wrong with letting people vote? Well,
we let people vote early, but allowing the votes to
be counted early.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Again, it's ordinary votes. You know, people who go in
and you know, vote where they're supposed to. If you
vote in your local place, you know, I live in
Auckland Central or you live in Wellington Central or wherever
you go on vote there on the day, that vote
can be counted really quickly because all the checks have
already been done. That person was enrolled to vote, and

(03:07):
they voted in their electorate and we crossed them off.
And as long as you didn't cross their name off
twice and have to check did that person vote twice?
That's a few days, you know, And the vote counting
only takes a few days. It's the other checks that
we have to do, and other countries do as well,
which is why you know it takes you know, a
month to get the official result. The difference with New

(03:29):
Zealand compared to Australia is you know, they knew what
the result was because it was you know, the Australian
Labor Party was fair enough ahead that the results in
the final few electorates which were close didn't matter themselves.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
And then we then have to go through the arduous
coalition negotiation posts, don't we in New Zealand. So basically
I think the moral of the story here is we
just make it like the census, Like if you're not home,
you know you've got to vote. If you're not home
where the census comes, you don't get to fill it in.
So you either vote in your area in your local

(04:02):
town hall, or you might have to do it way earlier,
and if you're somewhere else you can't.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
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Speaker 1 (04:12):
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