Electoral roll accurate says enrolment centre

Electoral Enrolment Centre national manager Murray Wicks said an independent accuracy examination of the electoral roll has found it is sound.

The examination results by the Business Research Centre come after claims of a dog and a non-resident registering on the electoral roll and other problems such as a man registering twice and a youth enrolling.

NZ First MP Ron Mark has called for an inquiry but Mr Wicks says it's unnecessary.

"It's way off the mark," Mr Wicks told NZPA.

Mr Wicks said the Business Research Centre took random samples of the roll and checked them against the population to ensure that sample was accurate. It found the roll was 98.4 per cent accurate.

"I'm delighted -- it's plus 0.2 per cent from 2002," Mr Wicks said.

"Let's put this whole thing into perspective there are four (reported) instances out of 2.85 million people that are enrolled."

Cases of mis-enrolments made public were:

* A Wanaka man who enrolled his dog to vote. Peter Rhodes last week admitted he successfully registered his Jack Russell dog Toby on the electoral roll before this month's general election and police are investigating.

* A sixteen-year-old boy was enrolled.

* A non-New Zealand resident in Auckland was enrolled.

* A person enrolled twice under two different names.

Mr Wicks said Mr Rhodes had broken the law as had the youth; "it's fraudulent".

He said the centre was looking into why the non-resident was able to be enrolled as it had a system with the Department of Labour intended to prevent such cases.

There were also systems in place to wipe out both votes if a person voted twice and people who intentionally rorted the system would be caught, Mr Wicks said.

Another concern was that people could use other voters' easy vote cards. Mr Wicks said requiring identification to vote would affect turnout and repeated that it was illegal to vote for someone else and people caught would be punished.

Asked how he could be confident there were not more cases, Mr Wicks the assessment of the electoral roll showed it was strong.

Mr Mark said there had also been reports of people buying easy vote cards and he was seeking assurances from the commission that only people entitled to vote had.

"The electoral process needs a fresh set of eyes over it to ensure that its integrity cannot be breached. People need assurance that easy vote cards are secure and can only be used by those to whom they are issued."

Mr Mark also said postal voting needed to be looked at after reports that forms had been stolen from letter boxes and rubbish bins.

"It becomes farcical when people can buy or acquire votes through illegal means and it renders our voting system no better than those of countries like Zimbabwe," Mr Mark said.

The system had to be 100 per cent secure or the right to vote would be bought into disrepute, he said.

- NZPA