The current election campaign is the most hollow and unsatisfying contest in living memory, according to political scientist Bryce Edwards.
He thinks voter turnout will be low this year - possibly the lowest in New Zealand’s electoral history.
If that happens, it will be a "a wakeup call that the political system isn’t working."
Edwards' comments come in the wake of figures showing a huge drop off in advanced voting numbers so far this year.
The statistics come from the New Zealand Electoral Commission, and show that as of Tuesday, 843,044 people had voted ahead of Saturday's election. That number is far smaller than the 1,415,041 early votes cast at the equivalent time in the 2020 poll.
On a percentage basis, the turn out so far is only 21.8%, compared with a turnout of 37.5% at this point of the campaign in 2020.
This is a huge gap, though its significance might be modified by the fact that this year's turnout is still better than it was in 2017, when 672,527 had voted at an equivalent stage in the campaign.
But Edwards says overall, advance voting has been rising since it was first implemented in 2011, so the current drop off is significant.
Edwards is a director of the Democracy Project and a political analyst in residence at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.
Commenting on the advance voting figures, he says there is no doubt in his mind that voter turnout will be down in 2023 from a relatively strong turnout in 2020.
"It’s just a question of how much it falls," he says.
"In my mind, especially after witnessing the lacklustre campaign together with the very low advance voting figures, the turnout is likely to be extremely low, and will quite possibly be the lowest in New Zealand’s electoral history," says Edwards.
"Previously the record was in 2011 when the general election had a turnout of only 69.6% of eligible voters. If voter turnout falls below the 2011 figure, producing the lowest vote since full suffrage was implemented, this will be something of a wakeup call that the political system isn’t working."
Edwards adds several riders to his comments. He notes there are other facts that might be playing a part.
"This big plunge in 2023 could just indicate that lots of voters are waiting to vote at the end of the campaign," he says.
"And, the first week of advance voting coincided with the school holidays, so maybe the numbers can be expected to increase with the holidays over. That’s what some optimistic observers are suggesting."
"But more likely, it just shows that few voters are going to turn out this time around, since the barriers to being able to cast a vote have been reduced every election, and the encouragements to vote early have been more and more frequent," Edwards says.
He adds there are other signs to suggest the public are turned off from this election campaign, especially with opinion polls showing public discontent with the voting options on offer.
In 2020 the ultimate turnout was 81.54% of enrolled voters. There were also End of Life Choice and cannabis referendums.
30 Comments
2020 was unique, wasn’t it? The whole country was still wobbling with covid, barely in aftermath. Under that influence folk also were largely satisfied with the government’s performance, at that point and as well, the election had already been postponed. Hard to accept a comparison to those circumstances three years later. Besides advance voting is tracking ahead of 2017 and let’s not overlook the impact Jacindamania was having then, at that equivalent stage.
Exactly maybe people were worried about COVID and didn't want to be around groups of people.
Plus a referendum. Quite different environment.
I voted early, I don't usually but will be away from my electorate and want my vote counted on election day, not waiting for special votes.
A large number voted for Labour in 2020 to keep the Greens out not because they were satisfied with the govts performance.
This time around it’s to keep a Labour, Green, Maori coalition out.
Until the Green Party returns to focusing on the environment they’ll continue to be the bridesmaid never the bride.
Got lots of friends that have all voted early as did I, and have heard lots of other reporting the same. Mind you none of those that have done so are hiding at home in pajamas mind wiped on endless crap on YouTube.
Clearly that demographic hasn't clocked Winston's policy on the dole. Maximum of two years funding in a lifetime....
Genuine dole bludgers are few in number and would mostly make terrible employees anyway. Paying them a bare minimum benefit is the easiest way to limit how much of a drag on society they are - they can do a lot more damage as a bad employee or desperate criminal. That's why governments will never actually get rid of the benefit, despite many voters hating it.
The end of life dole seems to motivate nearly a million voters to turn out, no one ever talks about rejigging that unharmed.
There are very good reasons for thousands of people to be on the dole. Illness, disability, single parents etc, who make up the vast majority of the dole anyway. Nice to have a couch when you hit the concrete. People bludging the dole exist, but they are relatively few and far between.
could be but I did not want to vote early as the Winnie and David fight gathered pace, Winnies olive branch today has destroyed that so may as well vote tomorrow, if you are a right block voter now it dos not matter who you vote for, I will vote to try and get future members in for depth within National.... the lower List MPs of act and NZF will never be ministers, so I may as well use my vote to get more nats in
In 2020 people were avoiding crowded spaces, social distancing, wearing masks. Its no wonder they didnt want to line up on the Saturday and vote with hundreds of other strangers.
Plus if you vote early there is a greater chance of your vote being "lost". So save it for Saturday. That and my area is conspiciously devoid of early voting locations. They all appear to be in Ilam.
Not a fan of polls and the possible influence they may have over those yet to vote. Certainly shouldnt be any polling when the booths are open nor adverts plastered all over the net . Im a classical voter and will go to the booth on Saturday ....still undecided... Hard to believe any of the propaganda . Nice watching them sweat it out though...lol
And it serves them right. Their strategy has been substandard. From the beginning all that National needed to state was that in respect of the electorate, they would be ready to engage with any party the electorate saw fit to return to parliament. End of story, nothing to add. An abysmal lack of forethought, that casts doubt on their capabilities in all regards.
100%. From the voting public perspective, it's hard to take offence with a simple, unequivocal message of "we will try our hardest to form a government with whomever is in parliament". It's literally the spirit of MMP isn't it?
The added advantage of that approach being that is far more believable than what Chippy has done with the ruling-out nonsense (protip, all politicians are power-hungry leeches and would sell their own mothers to gain or retain power ... he is no different as we may find out come next week) However, to Chippy's credit at least his stated position is clear and unequivocal.
Instead National has occupied this strange 'No Man's Land' with respect to NZ First, saying they don't want people voting for them, but then clearly accepting they will need people voting for them, and so on. All looks bad, terrible optics and although it's only two polls out of many the trend seems clear.
You'd think Mr Corporate himself would understand Marketing 101 - focusing on what your competitors are doing instead of promoting your own value proposition is never a great tactic.
Seldom would a first term mp be expected to be of prime minister capacity by the beginning of the next term. Unfortunately for them the utter disarray and ill discipline that knee capped National leading up to the 2017 election has necessitated such a hasty appointment. Luxon should have first served his political apprenticeship. During that time he might have discovered that he is not a natural politician, which is by no means a failing, far from it in truth. Control of the boardroom simply does not transfer to control of a caucus any more than management of a government, by way of an easy passage.
unlikely going on previous results,
the greens normally pickup an extra seat from specials, a lot of young people overseas vote for them,
national will get an extra one for port waikato and an extra one for all the wasted vote that will be split among the winning parties which could be as much as 6-8% of votes this time
I really dislike the 'wasted vote' thing.
I'm voting TOP. If I don't, and try to vote strategically, then my voice just got lost.
I'm desperate to send a message regardless of whether that gets a seat in parliament or not. I guess after voting closes I'll find out whether there are a growing number of people who feel the same, or whether everyone is just happy with the status quo.
Voter apathy is a key reason Labour will get less than 25% of the vote.
Polls don’t take this into account.
It is highly likely there will be a significant shift to the right.
Many left wing politicians and journalists are going to be out of a job.
This is the main reason they have been very negative & this has turned off many voters.
Agreed Tony. Labour voters have a history of not voting when they see the writing on the wall. And academics have a history of claiming "democracy" or the electoral system isn't working if Labour voters don't show up. And the sooner some of our givers of their opinions that masquerade as journalists get given a DCM, the better the country will be.
Hard disagree - a disfunctional Nat/ACT/NZF government is absolutely fantastic for left wing journalists - look how well right wing media has done out of the Labour government for evidence. You get way more clicks complaining about the government than supporting it. Hell, Donald Trump was the best thing that ever happened to mediocre left wing TV comedians, endless low effort content with a captive audience.
Yes and no. There was far less work especially creative or reporting work for writers like journalists and comedians with Trump. You could literally just post up clips of him and the comedy or tragedy would write itself. It was so prolific that there was not much screen time for anything else like investigative journalism on other topics and it pushed much of the industry to even further down the click bait autocomplete hole. Now you could get chat GPT to just reproduce many of the Trump articles with a different flair given the network it is on.
With NZ we don't really have left wing, right wing journalists. We have a centrist system with journalists who are caught between reporting daily news and producing nearly as much empty click bait as American sites for marketing money. Most will not even report news that is critically important anymore so you have to be across over 8 NZ news organizations to even read a story that will critically affect the lives of tens of thousands of kiwis. This election we have had so little investigative reporting and so much clickbait, politicians eating lunch, having school yard arguments that there is little concrete for the general public across one news site to base their opinion on. The debates have focused more on how politicians will be friends or fight with each other rather than say the known fallout from policies with reasoned researched evidence. It is a pity there is very little research on any policy this year. Every party has a few bonkers policies that need investigative research & review yet none of the news sites have any. It is all empty clickbait, celebrity opinions, tail wagging the dog stuff.
Yes, I know some of these. Dyed-in-the-wool Labour voters who would never vote anything else. Talking with one of them, she couldn't bring herself to vote anything else, so this election she simply won't vote at all.
The interesting bit is that if a pollster called her she'd probably say 'Labour' if forced to choose. I'm wondering if a poll says 27% will vote Labour, how many of those people will actually vote...
The low voter turnout is intentional, the lying legacy media has been promoting non-issues or inherently centre right advantaged issues like tax and crime to elect a National government (apart from RNZ who is really trying to back Labour). They have been polishing the turd of the Nats for the last while because the Labour government was a complete dysfunctional mess, it wouldn't last another government.
IDK how everyone here reaches adulthood without realising democracy is just fake, the candidates are picked for you, the topics hardly ever reflect real concerns, if they do then they are diverted down the garden path to irrelevant non-solutions (think endless promotion of CGT rather than any discussion of LVT).
I still got out and voted NZF to block the cancerous parts of NACT.
If you think the media determines the election then you probably think the betting sites must be the Majestic 12 or Illuminati. Even a smidgen of cynicism will lead you to Hanlon's razor. Most people really just don't care enough about the same things and the media is paid via viewership number metrics. You will get more interest for a Taylor Swift concert or Rugby article then you would about anything else, combined. Hence even though there is an election the bills on the office & wages still need to be paid. Now who wants another article about why NZ should have celebrity at our local concert stadium and which local sports team won the game last night.
Unsurprisingly the betting sites are pretty accurate as to the odds. After all the house has to win most of the time.
The difference between most media sources small/large, well established/new etc is their code of conduct, ethical reporting/correction standards, staff numbers, reach & popularity, journalist renumeration, guidance towards sensational click bait or detailed news... Take a guess why most small new media orgs report mostly sensational articles that also include a lot of cross promotion activities. You get more viewers & funding posting clickbait than anything else. With the only way to survive & grow media orgs is to build enough of an audience. Most readers cannot even stand to read a financial report on district plans or do anything approaching work or demands to do further reading in their media consumption. Anything more than a small page and they are lost (sometimes even anything more than a tagline these days). So even a bunch of clickbait taglines will benefit most media organisations... most have them. Some sites report publicly notified information for required consultations but if you think adding a click bait title is below them think again. No source is above reproach, the smaller ones have less incentive to follow ethical standards, the larger ones have more access to advertising funding so that can give them more freedom in what they report (more sustainable business model) but they are still caught requiring growing viewer numbers.
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