Enrolments surge after election date announced

The number of people signing on to the electoral roll has surged after the election date was announced last Monday.

Electoral Enrolment Centre national manager Murray Wicks told NZPA the number of people enrolling had leapt over the past week from an average of about 1000 a week to 4283.

More young people (18 to 24-years-olds) were also enrolling - up from about 600 a week to 1200 last week.

Mr Wicks would not speculate on whether Labour's student loan policy announced last Wednesday affected youth enrolments. That policy promised interest free loans to students who decided to remain in New Zealand.

"When people enrol they don't put down their reasons," he said.

However he acknowledged that processing took time so next week's figures were more likely to be affected.

Mr Wicks said the increased enrolments since the September 17 election date was announced was encouraging.

"Since the announcement there has been a promising increase from around 1000 to 4000 and I would expect that to further increase as we get closer to August 17, which is the last day to get onto the printed roll, and then a final surge before polling day."

There are 302,002 young people enrolled - 76.1 per cent of those eligible to vote.

In total there are 2,771,731 or 92.7 per cent of the general population enrolled.

- NZPA