The Front Page: Our electoral system and all the things that need to change

Our electoral system is a cornerstone of our democracy. Photo / NZME

Democracy has never been a static institution. It evolves over time, shifting to match the requirements and mores of the population as it modernises.

Part of the discussion involves the question of who should and shouldn’t be allowed to vote in the system.

According to an independent panel commissioned by the Government, our electoral system may be due for a few updates - particularly in regard to those who are excluded.

In the wide-ranging report are suggestions on the voting age, party donations, election thresholds, and the rules on who should and shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

Speaking to The Front Page podcast, Otago University legal expert Professor Andrew Geddis says the panel was set up in 2022 to go over all aspects of our electoral system in a methodical way to determine what’s working and what might need to change to future-proof our democracy.

Among the headline changes suggested in the report were recommendations to lower the voting age to 16, and giving prisoners the right to vote. Both of these issues are highly contentious, and political parties are divided on them.

“Our recommendation is to drop the voting age to 16 on the basis that 16 is the age in our law where non-discrimination law kicks in. Our law already says that if you’re going to treat 16-year-olds differently from people of other ages, you have to have a really good reason for doing it. And we’re just not sure what that good reason is. If you actually look at the evidence about how people’s brains develop, there’s no appreciable difference between 16- and 18-year-olds.”

The law currently provides that prisoners in jail for three years or more cannot vote, but the panel also suggested that this needs to change given that voting is a fundamental right.

“Why is it that committing a crime, even a reasonably serious crime, removes that right? What’s the connection between removing that right and your actions? We again couldn’t see a good justification for it, aside from basically some sort of penal reason – and we didn’t think that was a good enough reason.”

The report doesn’t end here, making a slew of recommendations on other issues, including the following:

• Should our 5 per cent threshold drop?
• When should new residents be allowed to vote?
• What can we do to improve democratic participation?
• Are we prepared for the impact of disinformation?
• And what should we do about political donations and lobbying in New Zealand?

For answers to all these questions and more, listen to this episode of The Front Page podcast.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. It is presented by Damien Venuto, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in business reporting who joined the Herald in 2017.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.