Victoria University's student association wants voting to be more accessible on campus. Photo / File
Victoria University's student association wants voting to be more accessible on campus. Photo / File
Victoria University's student association has questioned why there's no facility available for students to vote in local elections on campus.
Councils around the country work on engaging youth voters in the lead-up to local body elections, with 18 to 24-year-olds traditionally having the worst voter turnout for elections in New Zealand.
University of Otago has a special voting booth for students to enrol and vote at the same time and a place to drop off mail voting forms.
Auckland Council also extended its "One Stop Shop" to tertiary campuses this year.
Victoria University's student association representative Hannah Fleming said they had reached out over the past three elections, including this year, to the city council to get something on campus.
She said they had been trying their best to get young people voting but nothing was more effective than convenience and accessibility.
Fleming said in recent years they were told there was no "precedent" for voting on campus and that "it'd be unfair to give a particular subset of voters, students, a special service."
"When considering this year, the council said that there were sufficient options [to vote] - but to us, sufficient shouldn't really be the goal."
"There have been so many examples of the student voice being missed in local government. We have 22,000 students, as well as Victoria being Wellington's third-largest employer.
"Why would you not try to increase voter turnout by bringing special voting to the people? A simple practical decision of meeting people where they are, and the places where they go, will help increase the youth vote."
Victoria University of Wellington. Photo / Ross Setford
Wellington City Council spokesman Richard MacLean said the main reason they were not willing to put a ballot box at campus was security issues.
"We're not totally convinced that we can keep a ballot box secure and we would probably have to station a security guard by a ballot box if we were going to do it,
"The other thing is there's a post box on the university campus and there are post boxes all around the CBD. Our advice to students is just do your vote and get it in the mail."
This year, the city council were also putting a ballot box at Wellington Railway Station from Monday, October 7 to Friday, October 11 alongside boxes at community centres and libraries. There was also a special vote at Arapaki Manners Library and Service Centre.
Fleming said Kelburn, where the university was, had no community centres or libraries.
She said something similar to what Auckland and Otago universities had on campus would work well.
"We know a lot of our students didn't enrol in time and being able to enrol and vote in the place they visit every day would make a huge difference."
"Why keep voting inconvenient just because it always has been?"
University of Otago doctoral student Kyle Whitfield's study looked at youth voter turnout and found the current voting system was not catered to young people.
The research surveyed 435 people aged between 18 and 24, in Dunedin and Palmerston North.
Results showed 60 per cent of participants intended to vote at this month's elections, but a lack of information was a big barrier.
"Contrary to what some other research has said, young people want to vote, they want to be involved, but they don't feel as they have enough information to make an informed decision."
It also found 84 per cent thought online or electronic voting should be an option, with almost a third of those surveyed believing postal voting was not easy or straightforward.
Whitfield said the results showed voting needed to be more easily accessible and cater to young adults.
"Youth move around a lot, mail gets lost, they don't update their postal address with their electoral enrolment, so they don't get their voting packs - so then they just don't vote."
He said having a place for students to vote and enrol on university campuses was a "fantastic idea."
"When you look at Otago University and you look at student enrolment and student turnout, it's higher than the national average," he said.
"To me, that shows yes - somebody needs to come down to the university and run a polling booth... it's about making it more accessible to those people."
