‘People just not engaged’: Mayor calls for voter review after record low turnout

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

From local democracy reporter Jonathan Leask:

Ashburton Mayor Neil Brown says waning voter turnout shows people aren’t engaged with local politics.

Voting in the Ashburton District dropped under 50% and Brown has joined national calls for the election process to be looked at.

“The voting system needs to be looked and the system to be looked at is probably online voting,” Brown said.

“It appears to be that’s the only one we can move to. Perhaps a combination of both [online and postal], but it definitely needs looking into to get participation up.”

The silent majority got bigger as voter turnout across the country was down to a record low 36%, though it is expected to increase marginally once all votes have been counted.

Ashburton’s preliminary results had just 49.03% of voter returns – 11,337 of the 23,115 eligible votes – which was down on the 55.05% in 2019.

“People just aren’t engaged.

“I’ve talked to people who haven’t voted and asked why, and they said it’s because they don’t know the people, and they don’t want to get to know them.”

The lack of engagement isn’t just at election time.

“It is a problem the council grapples with all the time, working out how we get people more involved”.

Now, Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) is calling for an independent review, a move Brown agreed with.

“We need to have a look at how we get voters engaged in the electoral system,” he said.

LGNZ want to work with central government to review how elections were delivered and to consider factors such as the practicality of postal voting and accessing ballot boxes in more remote parts of the country.

“We want to see a short, sharp, and independent review that should feed into the Future for Local Government Review as well as the review of Parliamentary Electoral Law,” LGNZ chief executive Susan Freeman-Greene said.

Canterbury comparison:
District: 2022 - 2019
Kaikoura: 61.82% - 61.37%
Mackenzie: 53.98% - 60.51%
Waimate: 49.96% - 52.04%
Timaru: 49.22% - 55.01%
Ashburton: 49.03% - 55.05%
Waimakariri: 44.39% - 46.39%
Hurunui: 43.38% - 57.18%
Christchurch: 43.31% - 41.10%