The current election campaign is the most hollow and unsatisfying contest in living memory, according to political scientist Bryce Edwards.
He thinks voter turnout will be low this year - possibly the lowest in New Zealand’s electoral history.
If that happens, it will be a "a wakeup call that the political system isn’t working."
Edwards' comments come in the wake of figures showing a huge drop off in advanced voting numbers so far this year.
The statistics come from the New Zealand Electoral Commission, and show that as of Tuesday, 843,044 people had voted ahead of Saturday's election. That number is far smaller than the 1,415,041 early votes cast at the equivalent time in the 2020 poll.
On a percentage basis, the turn out so far is only 21.8%, compared with a turnout of 37.5% at this point of the campaign in 2020.
This is a huge gap, though its significance might be modified by the fact that this year's turnout is still better than it was in 2017, when 672,527 had voted at an equivalent stage in the campaign.
But Edwards says overall, advance voting has been rising since it was first implemented in 2011, so the current drop off is significant.
Edwards is a director of the Democracy Project and a political analyst in residence at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.
Commenting on the advance voting figures, he says there is no doubt in his mind that voter turnout will be down in 2023 from a relatively strong turnout in 2020.
"It’s just a question of how much it falls," he says.
"In my mind, especially after witnessing the lacklustre campaign together with the very low advance voting figures, the turnout is likely to be extremely low, and will quite possibly be the lowest in New Zealand’s electoral history," says Edwards.
"Previously the record was in 2011 when the general election had a turnout of only 69.6% of eligible voters. If voter turnout falls below the 2011 figure, producing the lowest vote since full suffrage was implemented, this will be something of a wakeup call that the political system isn’t working."
Edwards adds several riders to his comments. He notes there are other facts that might be playing a part.
"This big plunge in 2023 could just indicate that lots of voters are waiting to vote at the end of the campaign," he says.
"And, the first week of advance voting coincided with the school holidays, so maybe the numbers can be expected to increase with the holidays over. That’s what some optimistic observers are suggesting."
"But more likely, it just shows that few voters are going to turn out this time around, since the barriers to being able to cast a vote have been reduced every election, and the encouragements to vote early have been more and more frequent," Edwards says.
He adds there are other signs to suggest the public are turned off from this election campaign, especially with opinion polls showing public discontent with the voting options on offer.
In 2020 the ultimate turnout was 81.54% of enrolled voters. There were also End of Life Choice and cannabis referendums.
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