Our system of holding general elections is in for a shake-up. As Americans recover from the debacle of Florida, EUGENE BINGHAM reveals what's in store here.
Okay, so we didn't have to wait as long as the Americans.
But Election '99 will live in New Zealand voting history as the night of the long wait. As the confusion rolled on for weeks afterwards, confidence in the electoral process was shaken.
Apart from the slowness of the count - the worst on record - other problems, such as the votes that vanished from Himatangi Beach, created the impression of chaos.
It was the first major problem to face the new Government. And with the countdown until polling day 2002 already on, Prime Minister Helen Clark and her cabinet knew it was one they had to deal with urgently.
So what have they done?
Papers the Herald obtained show Attorney-General Margaret Wilson, cabinet committees, officials and two task forces have spent a year designing a revamped system.
The changes approved by the cabinet affect everything from the way voters enrol and the counting of votes to the infrastructure of the Chief Electoral Office. They are being drafted into legislation to be introduced early next year with broad support.
The real solid work on formulating the changes began with a report in March by former Prime Minister and constitutional law specialist Sir Geoffrey Palmer.
In a paper in March, he left the cabinet with no doubt about the size of the task and who was responsible.
"If the election is not conducted in a satisfactory fashion, it is the ministers who will be held responsible.
"So it is the ministers who need to take steps to see that it is conducted properly."
Sir Geoffrey identified the pitfalls of changing the election process and suggested a way forward. His key recommendation was to establish two policy task forces to find immediate and long-term solutions.
The 2002 Election Task Force would clear up problems that needed immediate handling, and the Election Framework Task Force would investigate the more far-reaching changes such as making one organisation responsible for elections.
While the work of the second group continues, the first has already formulated at least 12 significant changes to which the cabinet has agreed.
The changes break down into three areas: compilation of the electoral roll, vote-counting and overall structural changes.
THE ROLL People will no longer have to re-enrol every three years. The new system is one of continuous enrolment - once you're on, you're on.
When a voter changes address, he or she will not have to go through the entire process of re-enrolling - a change-of-address form will be enough.
The Electoral Enrolment Centre will still send out an enrolment update form before local body or parliamentary elections, but if your details are correct there will be no need to reply.
As a balance to scrapping the $9.2 million re-enrolment process, the centre will be authorised to check its records against those of various Government agencies to maintain the roll's accuracy.
Under provisions already scrutinised by the Office of the Privacy Commis-sioner, the centre will have new powers to data-match with the Departments of Internal Affairs and Work and Income, the Land Transport Safety Authority and the Ministry of Transport.
A cabinet paper by Margaret Wilson said the goal was to find people who were not enrolled and keep the roll up to date.
"There are no adverse consequences for people who are highlighted by these matching exercises - the aim is to enable them to become enrolled and so enfranchise them.
"It provides an additional external source of information on changes of address that may not already have been notified."
At the same time, the cabinet agreed to look at protecting people's privacy by reducing the amount of information on electoral rolls.
If those changes were approved, future versions of the roll would not include a voter's street number or occupation. Nor would they be available for sale.
VOTE-COUNTING The most dramatic change is that staff will be able to start counting some votes at 3 pm on polling day.
To speed the count, votes cast before polling day (including hospital votes) will be able to be processed from 3 pm, with strict measures - including security guards - to prevent the release of results before the 7 pm close of voting.
Margaret Wilson said the change would enable returning officers to clear one task before 7 pm, when their day's work really piled up.
It will affect more than 90,000 votes. Last year about 4.6 per cent of votes were cast before election day, and there are signs that percentage could rise next time because of a concerted effort to push people who will be out of their electorate on polling day to vote early.
"This proposal would mean that by 7 pm, there would be a team of experienced counters who would be able to be sent to help polling places that were having trouble," said Margaret Wilson.
"These various advantages go directly to the problems experienced at the last election over the timing of the count."
The Government has also agreed to introduce more flexibility so that counting can be done at a polling place rather than at booth level.
It will also allow ordinary Maori votes to be cast at every polling place.
Now, not every polling place has ordinary Maori voting facilities and the counting of votes from the Maori roll is usually delayed.
Another significant change will allow the party vote of somebody who has cast a special vote in the wrong electorate to count, even though their electorate vote will not count.
At the last election, several thousand party votes were effectively thrown away because people had voted in the wrong electorate.
INFRASTRUCTURE Central to the findings of the Election '99 post-mortem examinations was a 1996 decision by the Department for Courts to dissuade its staff from acting as returning officers because it could distract them from their regular jobs.
Under the changes, every Government department, state agency and state-owned enterprise will bear responsibility for helping the Chief Electoral Office with the smooth running of the elections.
An amendment to the Electoral Act will include a statement that the state sector should contribute to the running of the elections as a whole.
"It is appropriate to expect a collective response from those agencies and a willingness to co-operate in making staff and facilities available for the next election," wrote Margaret Wilson.
"Given that the agencies are all within the umbrella of the state, the Government is in a position to encourage cooperation and to find ways to accommodate the practical effects of contribution on an agency's usual output."
The Chief Electoral Office will be beefed up at a regional level, recognising the importance of returning officers.
"[They] are the key statutory officers for many of the statutory functions under the Electoral Act and operate under a wide degree of autonomy," said Margaret Wilson.
Five regional managers will be employed to work beneath the Chief Electoral Officer to help returning officers and ensure a consistent approach is taken around the country.
Returning officers will also be employed earlier to give them more time to prepare.
So, there you have it, the first round of what promises to be a long-term shake-up of the election process.
Margaret Wilson said yesterday that she wanted to make sure the country had a modern system that would not let us down again.
"I suppose what's in everybody's mind, including mine, is Florida. You don't want to move too quickly, but at the same time we really should be more technologically proficient."
Oh, and we don't want any dimpled chads, either.
Voting, but not as we know it
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