When National introduced its voter suppression law in a naked effort to rig the next election, they said it was all about saving time and producing faster election results. But now we have an election date, and the Electoral Commission has published its timeline, showing they will be taking the usual 20 days to count the votes properly. And they're clear why: they expect the number of special votes to increase, rather than decrease, thanks to National's voter suppression efforts:
But the Electoral Commission’s chief electoral officer Karl Le Quesne made clear to The Post the date would not change.In response, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith seems to be trying to unlawfully direct the Commission to take less time, in direct contravention of s105 Crown Entities Act. Naturally, there's no penalty for that - there never is when the government behaves illegally - but its another example of the fundamentally unconstitutional approach of this regime.“We need to plan for what could happen. We have allowed 20 days to declare the official results because we are forecasting an increase in special votes, including overseas votes. Even with the enrolment change, we expect many people to enrol or update their details after writ day which results in special votes,” Le Quesne said.
“The date for the release of the official results is not legislated or set in stone, but it’s important to allow time to get the final results right.”
Meanwhile, if you don't want to get caught by National's voter suppression law, make sure you are enrolled, and get your friends and family to check too. They have not yet corrupted the system so fully that we cannot vote them out, but we better take the opportunity to do that now, because we may not have the option if they get another three years.
