History of voting in New Zealand

Voting in New Zealand was introduced after colonisation by British settlers.

New Zealand Constitution Act

The first national elections in New Zealand took place in 1853, the year after the British government passed the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852. This measure granted limited self-rule to the settlers in New Zealand, who had grown increasingly frustrated with the colonial authorities (and particularly with the nearly unlimited power of the Governor). The Constitution Act established a bicameral parliament, with the lower house (the House of Representatives) elected every five years.

Initially, the system set standards for suffrage relatively high. To vote, one needed to fall into all of the following categories:
* males
* British subjects
* aged at least 21 years old
* owners of land worth at least £50, or payers of a certain amount in yearly rental (£10 for farmland or a city house, or £5 for a rural house)
* not serving a criminal sentence for treason, for a felony, or for another serious offence

In theory, this would have allowed Māori men to vote, but electoral regulations excluded communally-held land from counting towards the property-qualification (quite a common restriction in electoral systems of the time). In these circumstances, many Māori (most of whom lived in accordance with traditional customs of land-ownership) could not vote. Historians debate whether or not the system deliberately excluded Māori in this way. There was concern amongst many settlers that the "uncivilized" Māori would be, if enfranchised, a voting bloc with the numerical strength to outvote Europeans. However, most Māori had little interest in a "settler parliament" that they saw as having little relevance to them.

Despite the exclusion of Māori and of women, New Zealand's voting franchise appeared highly liberal when compared to that of many other countries at the time. At the time of the passing of the Constitution Act, an estimated three-quarters of the adult male European population in New Zealand had the right to vote. This contrasts with the situation in Britain, where the equivalent figure approximated to a fifth of the adult male population.

Gold-miners and the vote

In 1860 the franchise system extended slightly, waiving the property qualification for anyone who possessed a miner's licence. This aimed to enfranchise participants in the Central Otago gold-rush, who often did not own valuable land but who nevertheless ranked as "important" economically and socially.

Māori seats

1867 saw the establishment of four Māori seats, enabling Māori to vote without needing to meet the property requirements. Supporters of this change intended the measure as a temporary solution, as a general belief existed that Māori would soon abandon traditional customs governing land-ownership. Soon, however, the seats became an electoral fixture. While some have seen the establishment of Māori seats as an example of progressive legislation, the effect did not always prove as satisfactory as expected. While the seats did increase Māori participation in politics, the relative size of the Māori population of the time "vis à vis" Pākehā would have warranted approximately 15 seats, not four. Because Māori could vote only in Māori seats, and the number of Māori seats remained fixed for over a century, Māori stayed effectively locked into under-representation for decades.

The secret ballot

Initially, voters informed a polling officer orally of their chosen candidate. In 1870, the secret ballot came into use, whereby each voter would mark their choice on a printed ballot and place the ballot in a sealed box. (This system essentially continues in use today.) The change occurred to reduce the chances of voters feeling intimidated, embarrassed, or pressured about their vote, and to reduce the chances of corruption.

Abolition of the property requirement

After considerable controversy, Parliament decided in 1879 to remove the requirement of property ownership. This allowed anyone who met the other qualifications to participate in the electoral process. As the restrictions on suffrage in New Zealand excluded fewer voters than in many other countries, this change did not have the same effect as it would have had in (for example) Britain, but it nevertheless proved significant. In particular, it eventually gave rise to "working class" politicians, and eventually (in 1916) to the Labour Party.

From 1908, several legislative amendments extended voting rights to seamen who lived on their ships so did not have a residential address to qualify as an elector; subsequently several electoral rolls had "seamens' sections" with many addresses shown as their ship.

Country quota

Established in 1881, the country quota required rural electorates to be around a third smaller than urban electorates, thus making rural votes more powerful in general elections. The quota was abolished by the first Labour government in 1945.

Women's suffrage

New Zealand women finally gained the right to vote with the passage of a bill by the Legislative Council in 1893. The House of Representatives (then the elected lower house) had passed such a bill several times previously, but for the first time in 1893 the appointed Legislative Council did not block it.

The growth of women's suffrage in New Zealand largely resulted from the broad political movement led by Kate Sheppard, the country's most famous suffragette. Inside parliament, politicians such as John Hall, Robert Stout, Julius Vogel, William Fox, and John Ballance supported the movement. When Ballance became Premier in 1891 and established/consolidated the Liberal Party, many believed that female suffrage would ensue imminently, but attempts to pass a suffrage bill repeatedly met with blocks in the Legislative Council, which Ballance's outgoing predecessor, Harry Atkinson, had stacked with conservative politicians.

When Ballance suddenly died in office (27 April 1893), Richard Seddon replaced him as Premier. Seddon, though a member of Ballance's Liberal Party, opposed women's suffrage, which thus suffered an apparent setback as a cause. Despite Seddon's opposition, Members of Parliament assembled sufficient strength in the House of Representatives to pass the bill. When it arrived in the Legislative Council, several previously hostile members, moved to anger at Seddon's "underhand" behaviour while opposing the bill, voted in favour. This support sufficed to pass the bill, which the Royal Assent signed into law on 19 September 1893. In the 1893 general election women voted for the first time, although they were not eligible to stand as candidates until 1919.

It is often said by this measure New Zealand became the first country in the world to have granted women's suffrage. But in 1893 it wasn't a "country" in the sense of an independent sovereign nation, but a British colony, and other sub-national entities preceded it in extending the franchise to women, such as Wyoming in the United States in 1869 (see Women's suffrage).

Lowering the voting age

For most of New Zealand's early history, voters needed to have attained at least 21 years of age in order to vote. At times, legislative changes (in 1919 and 1940) temporarily extended voting rights to people younger than this, such as in World War I and World War II (when serving military personnel could vote regardless of age and despite not being resident at an address in New Zealand). Later, Parliament reduced the voting age further; in 1969 to 20 years of age, and in 1974 to 18. This extension of the franchise occurred in part in an atmosphere of increased student interest in politics due to the Vietnam War protests.

Overseas voting

The Electoral Act 1956 allowed New Zealanders to vote from overseas: it functioned predominantly as a consolidatory and simplifying act. During both world wars, military personnel serving overseas had been able to vote, but prior to 1956 civilians could not vote from overseas.

Abolition of the citizenship requirement

In 1975, Parliament extended the voting franchise to all permanent residents of New Zealand, regardless of whether or not they possessed citizenship. One cannot, however, gain election to parliament unless one holds New Zealand citizenship. (One party-list candidate in the 2002 election, Kelly Chal, could not assume her position as a member of parliament because she did not meet that criterion.)

witch to MMP

Apart from a brief period from 1908 to 1913, when elections used run-off voting, New Zealand used the first-past-the-post electoral system until 1996. Gradually, single-member electorates replaced multi-member electorates in urban areas, and single-member first-past-the-post electorates became the norm for most of the twentieth century.

Towards the end of the twentieth century, however, voter dissatisfaction with the political process increased. In particular, the 1978 election and the 1981 election both delivered outcomes that many deemed unsatisfactory; the opposition Labour Party won the highest number of votes, but Robert Muldoon's governing National Party won more seats. This sort of perceived anomaly occurred as a direct result of the first-past-the-post electoral system. Subsequently, voter discontent grew even greater when many citizens perceived both Labour and National to have broken their election promises by implementing the policies of "Rogernomics". This left many people wanting to support alternative parties, but the electoral system made it difficult for smaller parties to realistically compete with either of the two large ones — for example, the Social Credit Party had gained 21% of the vote in 1981, but received only two seats.

In response to public anger, the Labour Party established a Royal Commission on the Electoral System, which delivered its results in 1986. Both Labour and National had expected the Commission to propose only minor reforms, but instead it recommended the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system already used in Germany. Neither Labour nor National supported this idea, and National chose to embarrass Labour by pointing out their lack of enthusiasm for their own Commission's report. National, attempting to seize the upper ground, promised a referendum on the matter. Labour, unwilling to see itself outdone, promised the same. In this manner, both parties committed to a holding a referendum on a policy that neither supported.

When National won the next election, it agreed (under pressure from voters) to hold the promised referendum. This began the process of New Zealand electoral reform, which eventually resulted in the adoption of MMP.

The first MMP election took place in 1996. Disproportionality as measured by the Gallagher Index has fallen sharply, from an average of 11.10% in the period between 1946 and 1993 to just 1.11% in 2005.