Which candidates will get your tick?
Polling day is close and voters have just a short time left to decide who they want to back as their local MP and the government for the next three-year term. We asked our readers: What makes you decide to vote? Why do you wander down to the voting booth
JACK HENDERSON
The fact that people fought and died for my right to vote makes me want to respect their sacrifice and exercise my vote.
PHILIPPA STEVENSON
I vote to be a responsible citizen, to take part in democracy that is denied many around the world, to try and influence the government on the issues that matter to me and because I am a woman and women had to fight hard to vote. Kate sent me. In 1893 Kate Sheppard and her fellow suffragists gathered the signatures of nearly 32,000 women to demonstrate the groundswell of support for their cause. A 270-m-long petition – then the largest ever presented to Parliament – was unrolled across the chamber of the House with dramatic effect. Despite the opposition of Premier Richard Seddon, the Electoral Act 1893 was passed by both houses of Parliament and became law on 19 September. The news took New Zealand by storm and inspired suffrage movements all over the world.
JUSTIN DEN OTTER
Can’t complain about the result if you didn’t vote!
YVONNE EVANS
I can’t understand why anybody wouldn’t.
DIANNE ROACH
I think some people, often the young, feel dispirited, disillusioned and dismissed by politicians and their politics in general; hence the attitude ‘‘why should I vote?’’.
KATHRYN SANDERS
I vote because it is a way of influencing who will govern our country and what voices, views and values will be represented in parliament.
STEPHEN COXHEAD
I vote for change.
CORINNE YOUNG
I vote because I am concerned about social issues and the future of our country and the world.