Editorial: Early voting the beginning of the end to long election

Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon in the first Leaders' Debate on TV1. Photo / TVNZ

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the end of the election when overseas voters can start having their say before advance voting gets under way across the country on Monday.

People within days will begin to give their judgement on the political parties, not waiting to hear any more from politicians or worrying that they might change their mind before election day. In 2020 nearly 700,000 voters had cast their ballots after a week of early voting.

Tomorrow night the two main party leaders have a return debate bout, this time on Newshub. It’s another late chance for Labour’s Chris Hipkins and National’s Christopher Luxon to influence people before they vote.

If the trends of the past two elections continue, more than a million Kiwis will take advantage of advance voting before October 14.

In 2020, more than 1.9 million people voted before election day, up from 1.2 million who did so in 2017. The 2020 figure amounted to more than 50 per cent of registered voters.

The pandemic was thought to have been a motivator in spurring more people last time to vote early because of fears of a lockdown.

But advance voting is also a habit that more voters have developed over the past three elections with just 717,579 taking advantage of it in 2014. The patterns show that the take-up of advanced voting increases in the second week from the first.

The first week of upcoming early voting coincides with the second week of the school holidays, a heavy travel period. As of September 10, 3.4 million people are enrolled.

The popularity of advance voting is better for the main party currently more popular, which on polling trends is National, although a couple of recent polls showed a slight slippage in support. It can bank votes while it’s in front.

Early voting is a major challenge for Labour, the party trying to regain lost ground and convince voters that National is too much of a risk. Hipkins is running against a stopwatch to make inroads this week.

Will the economic news from last week make an impression? Will he produce a stronger debate performance tomorrow than in the mostly even first face-off? Is it just too late?

At the weekend the parties appeared focused on their supporter bases with Labour announcing a plan for thousands more state houses and National promising to scrap lowered speed limits.

National has been under pressure in recent weeks over its plans to finance its promises in government and also the make-up of its governing coalition and how it would function.

Yesterday Luxon finally made it clear that he will make a deal with Winston Peters if he has to - a change from months of neither confirming nor denying if he will work with NZ First.

Even this conversation shows National’s advantage. It’s the presumed next main governing party. The election is its to lose.

The general discussion has passed the point of can it viably occupy the government benches to who will it work with and how will it operate. Luxon himself probably got through his job interview in the first debate quite comfortably for most viewers.

Labour and Hipkins need to disrupt that scenario but the clock is ticking.