Rusty's cat status scratches his vote on electoral roll

Rusty the cat was sent voting forms, says owner Jennifer Hamlet.

Rusty Hamlet can't vote after all, even though the Electoral Commission sent him voting forms.

Much to the amusement of the 5-year-old tabby's owners, Auckland couple Jennifer and Mike Hamlet, their cherished cat received the voting forms shortly after the trio moved houses from Maraetai to Beachlands in November.

Addressed to "Rusty Hamlet", the envelope from the Electoral Commission contained forms and instructions for registering to vote, Mrs Hamlet said.

"The form they sent was blank so obviously they don't have Rusty's full details - like his occupation and all that stuff," Mrs Hamlet joked.

The cat's mail came a few weeks after the couple were sent their own forms from the Electoral Commission requesting they confirm their new home address.

"They just sent us our pre-filled form just to confirm things. We just ticked it and signed it and just sent it off and then probably two or three weeks later we got this one for Rusty," Mrs Hamlet said.

"I wrote on the letter: 'Hi, Rusty is a cat'," Mrs Hamlet said.

"I just put it all together and I'm going to put it in the post."

The Electoral Commission said Rusty ended up on its database after Mrs Hamlet included the cat in a New Zealand Post online mail redirection request.

"Mrs Hamlet stated in the request that she completed that they were moving on a permanent basis from 28 November 2014 and that they were all of the age to be eligible to enrol as a Parliamentary elector.

"She provided their old and new addresses," said the commission's national manager, Murray Wicks.

"As there was no indication on the change of address request by Mrs Hamlet that Rusty was a cat, the Registrar of Electors took the correct procedure to send Rusty an enrolment form with a covering letter to encourage Rusty to enrol."

Since being contacted by the Herald, the commission had removed Rusty - not yet enrolled as a parliamentary elector - from its correspondence database, Mr Wicks said.

Mrs Hamlet said she did not remember including Rusty in the change of address notification.

"I must have put his name in there because he's part of the family [and] he gets stuff from the vet. I do have a bit of a funny sense of humour," she said.