Controversial Amendments Not Recommended by Anyone

The Electoral Amendment Act 2025 came into force on 20 December 2025 and was fully in place by 1 January 2026, making several changes to the Electoral Act of 1993 and therefore altering the way the general election will be run on Saturday 7 November, 2026.

Among the changes is an amendment to electoral law that stipulates the last day to enrol to vote or update your enrolment details is 25 October, thirteen days before the Election Day. Previously, any unenrolled person wishing to vote could turn up to any voting place on the day of election and enrol, placing a special vote. This special vote would allow an elector to cast a ballot if they were unregistered, and have this considered an application for registration. In 2023, 110,000 people cast their vote using this method, which made up 3.81 percent of total votes cast. Including those leading up to Election Day, 603,257 special votes were cast in total, making up 20.9 percent of final votes cast, with 16,633 of these votes disallowed. 

This year, the Electoral Commission expects that 55,000 such votes will be disallowed on the basis of un-enrolment, with an additional 72,000 disallowed because a voter has moved and not changed their enrolment details by the date of 25 October. The total is more than seven times the number of disallowed votes from the last election.

The government's rationale for the change was to improve the “timeliness, efficiency, integrity, and resilience of elections and their operations,” yet the commission has maintained that the changes will make no difference to the release timeline of election results. They still expect to receive around 700,000 special votes from those who update their enrolments between Writ Day and 25 October, that will require processing after Election Day. This processing of enrolment transactions is normally completed on the fourth day after Election Day, but during the 2023 election it took twice that time to complete due to the increase in enrolments, and it took three weeks instead of the usual two to announce election results. 

The Ministry of Justice regulatory impact statement (RIS) prepared for the amendment act predicted that “an earlier enrolment deadline may merely shift enrolment demand in the run up to the election rather than reduce it,” and that for this reason the “option is not preferred.”

In 2025 Chief Electoral Officer Karl Le Quesne said that if the changes weren’t made the commission would have had to “resource up in a much bigger scale than otherwise,” but was clear that the amendment was “not a change that we recommended.”

The same year Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith told RNZ that allowing late enrolments placed “too much strain on the system,” and that “the 20-day timeframe will likely already be challenging to achieve at the next election.” Goldsmith also said that people had a year to get organised, and that he had “every confidence New Zealander’s can manage.”

Public law professor Andrew Geddis expressed concerns that large-scale changes to voting practices make it difficult for voters to change their behaviour quickly enough, consequentially leaving them unable to participate in the democratic process due to changes made in administrative law. 

“If those numbers are quite considerable and if we have a quite close election, then we do have this question as to whether the legitimacy of the election has been affected by people who wanted to take part being told that the law no longer allows them to do so,” he told Newsroom. 

But not only could closing enrolments ahead of advance voting result in lower voter turnout, it is also likely to disenfranchise certain demographics and, as a result, the parties they tend to elect.  

Geddis said that restricting same-day enrolment and voting can “be predicted to reduce the number of votes cast by groups that support left-of-centre parties.”

According to Aciale Consulting New Zealand Electorate Voter Demographic Visualisation, older electorates are more likely to vote National and NZ First, while younger Electorates trend toward Labour and the Green Party. The visualisation also shows that National has fewer votes from majority Māori and Pasifika electorates and moderate support from majority Asian electorates, while Labour has strong support from majority Pasifika electorates and moderate support from majority Asian and Māori electorates.

Judith Collins’ Attorney-General report regarding the Electoral Amendment Act advised that “The Electoral Commission has data that indicates that special votes are more likely to come from areas with larger Māori, Asian, and Pasifika communities, and that younger people are more likely to cast special votes. This may indicate that these communities will be more affected.”

For example, Electoral Commission data shows that in the 2023 election 48 percent of Māori voters aged 18 to 19 enrolled or updated their details during the voting period. Their votes would be disallowed this election.

In the same report, Collins concluded that the elements of the Amendment Act presented inconsistencies with the ‘right to vote’ from New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZBORA).

In response to this sentiment, Goldsmith said that “if people are making the argument that Māori are less capable of getting enrolled and participating, I just don’t agree with that.”

Deputy Prime Minister and ACT Party leader David Seymour also notably referred to special voters as “dropkicks that can’t get themselves organised to follow the law,” in July of 2025.

Others have drawn parallels with the SAVE America Act in the United States, an electoral amendment that if passed by the Senate will prevent mail balloting and require presentation of documentation that will disenfranchise an estimated 21 million Americans.

"This is a significant, but necessary change, and New Zealanders have plenty of time to get organised and enrolled. Automatic enrolment updates will also now be allowed and postal requirements will be removed, helping to keep people contactable and participating in democracy,” Goldsmith said.

But this change is not the only part of the Electoral Amendment Act 2025 that is being labelled as disenfranchisement. A further amendment to 1993’s Electoral Act reinstates a complete ban on prisoner voting, reversing a decision made by Labour in 2020 that allowed those serving sentences of less than three years to cast a vote. The change is not retrospective, meaning prisoners who were sentenced to less than three years before the bill came into effect will still be able to vote in this election, while those sentenced after 20 December no longer have the right to vote during their sentence. 

In her Attorney General report, Collins found further inconsistencies between the new laws regarding prison voting with the ‘right to vote,’ as well as the ‘right to benefit of lesser penalty’ from NZBORA. She refers to the Attorney General’s conclusion of the 2010 Bill, which states that “the irrational effects of the Bill also cause it to be disproportionate to its objective.”

The Independent Electoral Review published in 2023 also recommended granting all prisoners the right to vote, concluding that “given the fundamental nature of the right to vote, disenfranchisement should not form part of someone’s punishment.”

In April 2025, Goldsmith released a statement saying that “restoring prisoner voting was typical of the previous government's soft-on-crime approach,” and that “a total prison voting ban for all sentenced prisoners underlines the importance that New Zealanders afford to the rule of law, and the civic responsibility that goes hand-in-hand with the right to participate in our democracy through voting.”

In 2015, previously incarcerated Arthur Taylor argued successfully at the High Court that the prisoner voting ban was a breach of human rights due to its discrepancies to NZBORA. This was the first time in New Zealand court history that a formal declaration of inconsistency had been recognised as an obtainable solution for statutory breaches of the Bill of Rights.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was asked about the ruling by Stuff News in 2025, replying “I do not care what anyone else says about it.”

“This country is built on rights and responsibilities. And if you choose to take the rights but not hold up responsibilities and find yourself in jail, we are temporarily removing your rights for voting. That’s completely reasonable,” Luxon said.

Similarly to the changes made to enrolment cut off, the change is likely to affect certain demographics disproportionately, and therefore the vote count of their favoured parties.

While Māori make up approximately 15 percent of New Zealand’s population, they account for 52 percent of people in prison, making the effect of the prison voting ban inordinate for Māori voting rights as a whole. 

In 2019, the Waitangi Tribunal released a report on Māori prisoners voting rights. It found that, due to a lack of informed decision making, “the Crown has failed in its duty to actively protect the right of Māori to equitably participate in the electoral process and exercise their tino rangatiratanga individually and collectively.”

“Māori have been disproportionately affected … exacerbating a pre-existing and already disproportionate removal of Māori from the electoral roll,” the report read.

The Tribunal recommended urgently that legislation be amended to remove the disqualification of all prisoners from voting, irrespective of sentence. 

An article published in 2025 by Te Herenga Waka professors Dr Hedwig Eisenbarth, Dr Yvette Tinsley, and lecturer Dr Ti Lamusse outlined that human rights breaches, social exclusion risk, and lack of Māori consultation on the Bill increased the likelihood of negative outcome for prisoners, and Māori prisoners in particular.

“In our view—as experts spanning the areas of criminology, psychology, and law—imposing a voting ban is flawed on three counts: it ignores our human rights obligations, it risks undermining rehabilitation efforts, and it increases discrimination,” the article said.

“The right to vote should not be seen as a privilege but a fundamental right that lasts throughout imprisonment. Upholding prisoners’ right to vote would affirm their citizenship, align with human rights standards, and strengthen New Zealand’s democracy.”

Last week, Salient spoke with Justin Taua*, who is currently incarcerated, about the effect the voting ban would have for people in prison this election. 

Taua voted previously in the 2023 election while incarcerated, and says the experience was similar to that of outside. 

He says losing the right to vote sets a precedent that marginalises prisoners when in truth their situations are symptoms of “wider socioeconomic flaws, things like poverty, mental health, drug use.”

“You might say you’re breaking the law, you’ve hurt society, your community. You deserve to be reprimanded in some way … it’s understandable,” he said of the intention behind the new laws.

“As a citizen, we have the right to vote, and just because I’m in prison doesn’t mean I’ve lost my citizenship. So why have I lost my ability to act upon that?”

Taua, who was unaware that the Amendment has actually passed into legislation, believes it to be a direct violation of human rights as guaranteed to incarcerated people by NZBORA.  

“You’re marginalising a group of citizens, regardless of the committing offences.”

He says that in his experience, and for a lot of people growing up in poorer or marginalised electorates, the importance of voting was underemphasised.

“The unfortunate reality of prison is that a lot of my peers are either still unaware of the power that they hold regarding citizenship, and the personal, ethical, moral, social kind of ability we have to engage.”

“Now that I’ve come to understand the true power of having the ability to vote, I’m firmly of the opinion that I should vote,” he said.

*pseudonym