In response to the Independent Electoral Review set up by the Minister of Justice to review our electoral law, Maxim Institute Senior Researcher Marcus Roberts prepared the following written submission, outlining Maxim’s recommendations in response to Questions 2.1 and 2.2 of the Consultation Document relating to minimum voting age and other potential changes to voter eligibility rules.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Maxim Institute wishes to make recommendations in response to Questions 2.1 and 2.2 of the Consultation Document relating to the minimum voting age and other potential changes to voter eligibility rules. 

These questions relate to the “demos” or who makes up the voting public in our democracy and where the boundary should be drawn between voters and non-voters. 

We submit that the New Zealand “demos” should include those who are:

1. sufficiently connected to New Zealand’s political community; 
2. affected by its laws; and 
3. competent to “appropriately rule over themselves.”

Using this approach, we make the following three recommendations:

1. The voting age should remain at 18

We believe that the minimum voting age should be set at the age which best ensures voters are competent to understand their interests and to vote to protect and promote them. Evidence suggests the current voting age is a better proxy for competency than 16.

2. Overseas voters who have lived in New Zealand within the last nine years should be entitled to vote

The current rules are too restrictive as they prevent expatriate voters who still have sufficient connection to New Zealand from voting if they have not returned once in the last three years. A better test for connection to New Zealand’s political community should be based upon the length of time spent outside of New Zealand – nine years or three electoral cycle is a good length of time, comparable to the United Kingdom’s rules.  

3. All prisoners should have the right to vote

The current rule which prevents prisoners from voting who are serving more than three years in prison is based on the idea that voting is a privilege which can be lost through bad behaviour. However, voting should be treated as a right which is not lost upon being sentenced to prison.

We have also considered whether the separate yet related issue of whether voting should be made mandatory and make the following recommendation:

4. Mandatory voting should not be introduced

While mandatory voting will increase voter turnout, we do not believe that it will necessarily improve voter political engagement or the legitimacy of the results. Mandatory turnout may deal with the symptom of relatively low voter turnout but not its cause.