Nick Smith: Nelson mayor says in-person voting would improve turnout in local body elections

There's increasing suggestions turnout in local body elections would improve with a move to in-person voting.

Local Government New Zealand wants postal voting scrapped in local elections - and replaced with polling places and ballot boxes.

Nelson mayor Nick Smith is behind the calls and says less and less people have access to mail boxes than ever - resulting in less people having their voices heard.

"That is negatively impacting on people being part of our local elections - and the real problem is for mayors or councils to be able to speak to their communities when you've got well less than half the people voting."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Local Government New Zealand wants polling stations and ballot boxes
for local elections, get rid of the postal voting they
reckon Nick Smith's with Local Government New Zealand, the Electoral
Reform chair, good evening.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Nick A, good to be on your program right.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Thanks for being here. So is what people not turning
up to vote? We know that's a problem. Do you
think this will change that?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yes? I do, and I think we've got two big problems.
The first is for thirty years we've seen a decline
in the participation in our local elections. When I first
stood in the nineteen eighties, we're up at about sixty percent.
We're down to forty percent. That compares with eighty percent
of people voting in our parliamentary elections. And then the
other clinger is that post is in a death spiral.

(00:48):
The numbers of letters has declined by about ninety percent.
There's lots of people that even don't have a letterbox
or certainly don't check one, and that is negatively impacting
on people being part of our local elections. And the
real problem with it, Ryan is for mayors or councils
to be able to speak for their communities when you've

(01:09):
now got well less than half the people voting, it's
a real risk and if we really believe in our democracy,
we need to sort it.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
I agree with you because I just think about my
own situation. If I had a letter, you know, thing
I've got to fill in, and then I've got to
remember to take it with me into the car, put
it in a bag, then remember to get it out
and go to a post bar. I've never been to
a post box, you know, in the last ten years.
I mean, if there was somewhere I could go and
tick my box, it would be a lot easier.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
And the other part is we know the parliamentary election
system works. And one of the advantages of having the
Electoral Commission run it is they run it on a
nationwide basis. We know the habit and we've got a
level of participation. It's actually one of the highest in
the world. Now, the other part advantages I've got is
we all remember the Orange man and his dog that

(01:58):
encourage us to get out to vote. They spend about
four bucks a voter on that campaign. In comparison, councils
each run their own sort of little ad hot campaign,
averagely spending about a ninth of that, and you do
get what you pay for. And so I'm keen to
recruit the Orange man and the dog and getting him

(02:22):
doing his job when we do our council elections.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, and when the better is better than forty percent,
which is the current turn out which is not great. Next,
thank you for that, Nick Smith, who is with the
Electoral Reform Chair at Local Government New Zealand. For more
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