Claire Harvey: Why you can't read all about it on election day

We've got some sensational election news. Huge. This story will completely change your view.

Late last night, the Herald caught two opposing political leaders together, dining on whale sashimi at an ultra-exclusive hideaway Auckland restaurant, cackling and sloshing soy sauce everywhere as they waved their chopsticks in the air and mocked the gullibility of New Zealanders.

We can't tell you the names. We can't show you the photos.

Actually, perhaps it didn't happen.

You'll never know, because New Zealand's electoral laws prevent all media outlets from telling you anything about the election today. It's no fun at all.

We, like every other media outlet, must ignore all the sensational events which occurred since yesterday's edition. All of a sudden, great news value is attached to flower shows, Small Claims Tribunal callover hearings and the latest advances in embroidery technique.

From midnight until the polls close at 7pm, it is a criminal offence to print or broadcast anything that may influence a voter's decision, punishable with a $5000 fine.

Even if we discovered that the culprit behind the Tauranga bomb scare was one of the more unhinged candidates, we couldn't tell you.

Candidates must refrain from campaigning and dismantle all billboards from every country back road, just in case an innocent voter sees one on the way to a polling booth. Party officials cannot even wear a party rosette in public.

To protect you from undue influence, that well-known organ of political propaganda, Muffin Break, was forced to ensure that staff at all its outlets spent yesterday dismantling their "bean poll" stands, which allowed customers to vote by dropping a coffee bean into their favourite party's box.

The law is so tight that the Chief Electoral Commissioner, David Henry, told the Herald we would be committing a criminal offence if we published a list of all the candidates' names in today's edition.

Websites are not allowed to post any new election material, but do not have to remove all previous election coverage.

Absurdly, there is nothing to stop New Zealand voters looking at the websites of the Australian newspapers and broadcasters who have sent journalists to cover today's poll.

For the British, Australian and American newspapers, election day is a chance to run thundering editorials, juicy election scandals and opinion polls.

On election day in 1992, Britain's Sun newspaper ran a picture of the Labour leader's head inside a lightbulb under the headline: "If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights?"

When Kinnock was defeated by John Major, the paper claimed it was "The Sun wot won it".

On the day of Australia's 1999 election, Sydney's Daily Telegraph ran a new opinion poll across page one under the heading "Labor set to seize power".

Two days later, newly re-elected Liberal Party Prime Minister John Howard rang the Telegraph's editor, Col Allan, to say thanks for helping him to victory. Howard knew, as did Allan, the headline spooked many wavering Liberal voters back into his arms.

Until the 1990s, Australian law imposed a "blackout" on all election news from radio and television for 48 hours before polling day.

It was repealed after a protest campaign by New Zealand-born broadcaster Derryn Hinch, who, in 1989, went on his Melbourne 3AW radio show and read aloud election stories from the morning newspapers, which were not subject to the ban. Hinch was sacked live on air, but later rehired.

The New Zealand system is "an anachronism", says Otago Daily Times editor Robin Charteris. "If people are so gullible as to be swayed at the absolute last minute of an election campaign that has seemingly gone on for a year, then they deserve the government they finally get," Charteris says.

Some editors, such as Bryce Johns at the Waikato Times, spent yesterday in a state of Zen bliss, enjoying the respite from all the election grubbiness. "I think the readers will be grateful for the change, actually," Johns says.

Chief Electoral Officer David Henry says the system is an historic protection for New Zealanders' rights to make up their minds in peace. "The way it has been constructed over quite a long period of time is basically to leave voters alone on election day," Henry says, adding the same rationale is behind a ban on exit-polling, the practice of asking people how they voted as they leave polling booths.

In the 2001 US election, television networks famously (and wrongly) declared exit polls were showing Democrat Al Gore had won the key state of Florida - before polls closed in many areas, including western Florida. That prompted Republicans to allege that pro-Bush voters who heard the results while on their way to voting booths decided not to bother.

American voters face an all-day barrage from politicians on television and radio making dubious claims about the exit polls, says Auckland University political scientist Raymond Miller.

"That onslaught may well contribute to the low turnout in some democracies, like the States," says Miller, adding New Zealand has traditionally very high turnout.

"I think if voters were being harangued by politicians all through polling day, you might find they were just turned off the whole thing," Miller says.

Imagine if they knew the stories we aren't allowed to report today.