No more same-day enrolling amid major electoral law changes
Thursday, 24 July 2025
The Government is moving to end same-day enrolment for voting, potentially disallowing hundreds of thousands of voters if existing voting habits remain.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announced planned changes to “unsustainable” electoral law on Thursday, including only allowing votes if enrolment is completed before the early voting period begins, ending “treating” such as offering free food near voting booths, raising the threshold for declaring donors and reinstating a ban on prisoners voting.
Government ministers have given various reasons for wanting to abolish same-day enrolment: that it caused weeks’ delay in producing an election result, that politicians were “entitled” to know who they were campaigning to, and that “dropkicks” who can’t organise themselves to enrol should not be able to vote “to tax away hard-working people’s money”.
But Labour says the move was “despicable” and the Green Party described the changes as “a dark day for our democracy”.
“I think 110,000 votes are worth it. I think every single New Zealander is entitled to have a voice in who represents them in this place. If it takes another week, that's okay by me, because democracy is worth waiting for,” said Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb.
Speaking to reporters, Goldsmith said the growing number of New Zealanders enrolling to vote on the day of the election, or as voting was under way, had become too burdensome on the system.
Under the change, voters would have to be enrolled before early voting begins, being 13 days before election day.
Enrolment after voting begins has been on the rise, and at the 2023 election there was a “large increase”, the Electoral Commission said. There were more than 450,000 enrolments after voting began, of which 110,000 were on election day.
“Ultimately the Electoral Commission has been sending sort of two messages. One is get enrolled before the election,” Goldsmith said.
“Actually, people, the law is that you need to be enrolled within a month of [a person’s] circumstances changing.
“But they’ve also been saying, but don't worry, you don't actually have to get enrolled, because you can just do it when you turn up to vote … That’s just making the whole system unsustainable.”
Goldsmith also said it created weeks of delay before a election result could be provided -- complicating coalition negotiations between political parties.
“We used to be able to get an outcome of the election in two weeks, it went out to three weeks, and the advice I've had is that if we do nothing, it'll be longer than that, pushing into four weeks.
“It does actually matter. If we have an uncertain outcome, people don't start coalition negotiations until they know the final outcome, and if that's drifting into four weeks, then that creates more uncertainty.”
He said a greater proportion of the voters who enrolled on the day were Māori.
“If people are making the argument that Māori are less capable of getting enrolled and participating. I just don't agree with that as well. I think we've just got to get our messages right.”
NZ First leader Winston Peters said politicians should “know” who they were campaigning to.
“People are turning up on election day with no idea what the campaign was all about. We’ve got no idea who they are. We don't know how to talk politics to them. That can’t be right.
“We’re entitled to know what the voters think about us, because we know who they are.
“If you can't in three years, get out and enrol 13 days out, then there's something wrong with you.”
Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour said there were a about thousand days between elections, which gave time for people to meet the obligation to register.
“When you vote, you're voting to give huge power to tax people's money, make rules restricting their lives. Frankly, I'm a bit sick of dropkicks that can't get themselves organised to follow the law, which registering to vote is a legal requirement, then going along and voting, to tax away hard working people's money.
“It's a responsibility to be on the electoral roll under the law, if you can't be bothered doing that, maybe you don't care so much.”
Other changes proposed by the Government include requiring 12 days of advance voting before each election, allowing the Electoral Commission to automatically update people’s details on the electoral roll by using other government data, removing the postal requirements around enrolment and allowing special vote processing to begin earlier.
The threshold for reporting the names of party donors would be increased from $5000 to $6000, which Goldsmith said was to account for inflation.
Prisoners would again be banned from voting.
A new offence would be created to prohibit “treating”, or the providing of free food, drinks, and entertainment within 100 metres of a voting booth. The punishment for this would be a $10,000 fine.
Allegations of such treating was part of concerns raised about Manurewa Marae, its connection to Te Pāti Māori, and effort to increase voter turnout, reported on extensively by The Post and Sunday Star Times.
Webb said Labour was not consulted on the changes which would “result in fewer votes for New Zealand”.
“Māori young people, working people, people looking after kids. People have got busy lives, and they're the kind of people who we want to vote. We want everyone to vote, not just those people who are organised enough to enrol to vote 14 days before the election.”
He said the disclosure of donors was “going in the wrong direction”.
“I want to see more transparency. I want to see more donations disclosed. And what they've done is lifted it to $6,000 we'll see less disclosed.”
Green Party electoral reform spokesperson Celia Wade-Brown said requiring enrolment before voting started would have people missing out on their democratic right.
“These changes represent a dark day for our democracy.
“While the Government has taken away votes from people in prison and made it harder to vote in general, it has made it easier for wealthy people to donate to political parties from the shadows.”