Dr Bryce Edwards: Losing confidence in the integrity of NZ elections

Do you believe New Zealand runs its general elections fairly and competently? As a voter, can you be confident that the votes on your ballot will be counted towards the final result?

As a political scientist, I’ve been asked these questions many times and always answered “yes”, with very few caveats. I’ve even written a chapter for global anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International about how trustworthy the New Zealand election administration is.

Ele Ludemann: Is voting too easy?

Election Day was a month ago and we had to wait three weeks to get the results.

One of the frustrations over the delay is that the law which allows interim updates for provisional results on the night of the election, prohibits them from then until the final result is announced. That will be easy to change but it is not the only issue which needs to be addressed.