One election day idea could help boost voter turnout

New Plymouth’s mayor has suggested it is time to leave postal voting in the past after another election failed to generate a high turnout.

With preliminary results in, 44.73 of eligible people voted in New Plymouth, while South Taranaki reached 47.7 per cent and Stratford 51 per cent.

Newly re-elected mayor Neil Holdom said New Plymouth had achieved a level of success given that councils generally dip by about four per cent when Single Transferable Voting is introduced.

‘‘But obviously it’s disappointing that more than half of our people, for a range of reasons, chose not to vote or were unable to vote,’’ he said.

Holdom pinpointed several reasons, including no online option and people struggling to find good information about candidates, and there had also been people who had moved and not received their papers.

‘‘It would have been nice if the electoral commission had have run a really active campaign to get people to update their addresses,’’ Holdom said.

‘‘The postal system has done its day and I still think the option of election day works in New Zealand, that we get people out on a single day.’’

The statistics back up the success of the general election day – in 2017, 40,211 people in the New Plymouth electorate voted – a turnout of 80 per cent.

For Taranaki-King Country, which covers from Stratford to north of Raglan, 36,750 people voted – 82 per cent.

None of the district councils got close to those figures in the local government election – under preliminary results, the highest percentage went to the Chatham Islands with 68.9 per cent, while the national average, according to Local Government New Zealand, was 41.4 per cent.

But it wasn’t for lack of trying on New Plymouth’s part, Councillor Stacey Hitchcock said.

She wasn’t sure if the turnout reflected apathy or things in general going well in local government. ‘‘Everyone worked really hard,’’ she said, pointing out how staff had volunteered their time on the weekends encouraging people to vote.

The council had even set up a drive-through voting booth in New Plymouth.

NPDC external relations manager Jacqueline Baker said there had been confusion with the dates for postal voting.

But on the last day of polling, NPDC received 6000 votes, she said.

‘‘Do we need to create more of a sense of urgency around it given what we saw in the last 24 hours here?’’ she said, suggesting ‘‘one epic vote day’’ was an option.

Last week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she would like to see at least the beginning of online voting, and last December nine councils dropped a joint plan to trial online voting in 2019, largely due to cost.