Editorial: Election date becoming a tricky dilemma to resolve

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield during a Covid-19 response update with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell

As the Government and health authorities deal with the Auckland coronavirus cluster, a big decision waits in the background over the fate of the September 19 election.

Early voting is due to start on September 5, just three weeks away. In the meantime campaigning has been suspended.

Several questions have to be considered. Would it still be desirable to hold the election on the set date? Is it fair to all parties and the public to still hold it with a truncated campaign? Can voting be held safely?

At this stage it is hard to know how quickly the outbreak can be contained and also whether another outbreak could prove disruptive, should the election date be changed.

Health authorities are effectively detectives tracking clues. They need to know as much information as possible about the source of the current outbreak and how widespread it is. That hunt is easier to conduct while restrictions are in place than it would be without them.

From the public's point of view the most difficult aspects of lockdown restrictions are disruption and uncertainty over safety and how long they will go on for.

Targeted lockdowns have been used to douse major Covid-19 flare-ups overseas. This is our first experience of it since the initial lockdown.

It is a warning for businesses to build in flexibility to their operations if they haven't already, to be able to continue in some way online, through easily accessed contactless pick-up and delivery operations. Other clusters could well occur in the future.

Even if the boundaries of the cluster are identified relatively soon, the situation will need to be monitored closely. When we descended from lockdown it took a long time for health authorities to be confident of elimination.

With those factors, the September election date is not ideal. It could also be seen as a major distraction in this health crisis. And it is hard to carefully consider the implications in the middle of a firefight. Yet that all has to be weighed against our democratic rights to vote and the set three-year parliamentary term.

The voting process, if it goes ahead, should be able to be held safely with strict precautions. But because it would be an unusual situation, there has to be some doubt about whether it would work in practice.

South Korea held elections in April with clear rules.

Polling stations were first disinfected and opened early at 6am. Voters had temperature checks when they arrived at polling stations and anyone with a temperature above 37.5C was taken to a special booth.

People had to wear masks, use hand sanitiser and plastic gloves while voting and maintain a 1m distance between each other.

There are other ways of making the process safe.

People running polling stations could wear protective equipment such as masks and face shields and work behind sneeze screens.

Increased promotion of early voting could be important to lessen the load on election day. The numbers of people allowed in polling stations at any one time could be limited. The hours could be extended. Electronic or mail voting could be options.

In the United States, where voting by mail has become an intense political issue for the country's November election, it is commonly used and some states have drop-off boxes for ballots.

At some stage there needs to be space to debate whether the nation's approach to the pandemic requires changes, whether tweaks or overhauls, but that is hard to have during the middle of an outbreak when unity and action are important. The situation makes it politically tough for other parties to take stances critical of the Government.

Our experience of the pandemic so far has shown that health and the economy are entwined - people need to have confidence they can go about life safely for significant sectors of the economy to operate effectively. In places overseas where the virus is widespread, normality is what is craved.

But there probably are improvements that can be made here to make restrictions less disruptive, more effective, fair and realistic.

It is a tricky dilemma to resolve at a time when the country needs stability.