David Farrar: Bill to reinstate prisoner voting ban

Paul Goldsmith announced:

The Government has agreed to reinstate a total ban on prisoner voting, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says.

“Cabinet’s decision will reverse the changes made by the previous government in 2020, which allowed prisoners serving sentences of less than three years to vote.

“Restoring prisoner voting was typical of the previous government’s soft-on-crime approach; we don’t agree with it.

“Citizenship brings rights and responsibilities. People who breach those responsibilities to the extent that they are sentenced to jail temporarily lose some of their rights, including the right to vote.

“The proposed change will establish a consistent approach to prisoner voting, regardless of the length of sentence.

I believe there are only two principled positions you can take on whether prisoners vote – all prisoners can vote, or no prisoners can vote.

Having a three year threshold for losing voting rights is arbitrary. Someone sentenced to 35 months gets the vote and 27 months does not. Someone who is in prison constantly for 10 years through a series of short sentences gets a vote while someone in prison for 4 years for one sentence does not.

I don’t support mass killers such as Brendon Tarrant getting the vote. He removed the ability to vote for dozens of New Zealanders he killed, so why should he get to vote (if he was a NZ resident)?

Judges go out of their way not to sentence people to prison. The law in fact tells them to do this – choose the least restrictive punishment that is appropriate for their crimes. You generally only go to prison if you are a hardcore recidivist, or your offending was very serious. You lose your liberty and many other rights when you go to prison.

In some countries, you don;’t only lose voting rights while in prison, but for a period afterwards. I don’t support that though.

Very few prisoners actually vote, despite the Electoral Commission making it very easy for them.

At Invercargill prison there were 24 votes out of 149 prisoners.

At Otago, there were 12 votes out of 405 prisoners.

And at Waikeria there were eight votes from 433 prisoners.

David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.