The last refuge of a scoundrel

My Electoral Amendment Bill submission

Image from theacademyadvocate.com

I am strongly opposed to this bill.

To appropriate a quote attributed to the Englishman Samuel Johnson “Voter suppression is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”

Having grown up in the United States and followed American politics for 30 years and New Zealand politics for the last 10, I know voter suppression when I see it. The conditions for voter suppression always involve an unpopular political agenda being pursued by a minority that faces strong opposition from the majority of the voting public. The Republican party has demonstrated themselves to be masterful in suppressing the votes of the citizens of their country. To give just one example, the state of Texas has nearly 2 million more registered Democrats than Republicans, a nearly 10 percentage point difference. This would be more than enough to hand Democrats control of the state legislature and to guarantee the state votes Democrat in the general elections. However, the Republicans have engaged in gerrymandering and voter suppression laws, including voter ID laws and limiting ballot boxes and voting locations in the most populous areas of the state. This has entrenched Republican rule in the state despite the majority of citizens being opposed to the policies of the Republican party.

This bill has been described as a fix to some problematic electoral issues and to increase efficiency. Yet despite a report by the Attorney General describing it as inconsistent with and in violation of several aspects of the Bill of Rights and giving alternative suggestions for how to improve the integrity and efficiency of the electoral system, the Government has progressed it anyway. I will leave these details to other submitters but suffice it to say, any government that is truly supportive of democracy would be looking to increase access to voting, not restrict it.

When considering the type of voters this bill will affect, it is clear that this is a naked voter-suppression measure. The Attorney General noted that based on an analysis of the effects of the bill in a cabinet paper, over 27,000 people would have their eligibility to vote affected by the proposed legislation. In a close election, if the majority of these voters voted for either the left or right bloc, this difference would handily swing the election. It is not surprising that other analyses have shown that the vast majority of voters who vote under conditions to be eliminated by the current bill vote for the left bloc.

Let’s call this bill what it is then: voter suppression. In a government term that has been characterised by economic illiteracy and torpedoing of the economy, an austerity agenda and the largest rollback of workers’ rights in decades, the fiercest attacks on Te Tiriti we’ve seen in quite some time, naked influence by and governance for corporate interests at the expense of the environment and public, overhaul of the education system to remove any attempts at decolonialism, and inflammatory rhetoric around “wokism”, it’s clear the government is concerned their incendiary policy will hurt their electoral chances.

But the bill does more. It pulls the mask off. It reveals that the Coalition Government’s agenda is not a good-faith attempt to honestly fix the country’s problems. Any government that was making an honest attempt and believed that their policy would eventually benefit the majority of New Zealanders would stand by that policy and allow voters to weigh in. This bill shows that they know that their policy benefits the wealthy and corporations and disadvantages the majority of the voting public. It further shows that rather than try to address the concerns of the public in substantive political and material ways, they are choosing instead to limit those who can raise a voice against them via the ballot. It reveals the government’s agenda in all its cynicism and callousness, an agenda written and lobbied for by wealthy and corporate interests, rammed through despite overwhelming opposition from the public, and continued into a second term by naked disenfranchisement of those who would democratically oppose and stop it. If there was any doubt as to their intentions, this bill eliminates it. It unequivocally and once-and-for-all reveals the government for the scoundrels they are.

The bill must be rejected by the committee and not reconsidered.