Janet Vaughan is part of Royal Oak Baptist Church in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland.
Earlier this year I wrote about Common Grace Aotearoa's Thriving in this Land workshops. Now Common Grace is asking churches to help with something practical, with a deadline attached.
The general election is on Saturday 7 November. This time you can no longer enrol, or update your enrolment details, on Election Day, or during the two weeks of advance voting before it. Under changes made to the Electoral Act last year, enrolment closes at midnight on Sunday 25 October. Anyone not enrolled by then will not be able to vote. Anyone whose address is out of date will face extra barriers to voting, and their electorate vote may not be counted.
That is not a small change. At the last election, 110,000 people enrolled or updated their details on Election Day itself. Common Grace estimates the new rules will affect up to 450,000 people, roughly 12% of the voting population. Those most likely to miss out may already be on the edges: renters who have moved, students, young people voting for the first time, and people whose lives don't leave much room for paperwork.
The Electoral Commission have had their funding reduced so they have less resource with which to get the word out to the people who will be affected by the new rules.
Many of us in Baptist churches on a Sunday morning will have been enrolled for years (though anyone who has moved house needs to update their details). But think about who else is connected to your church: the youth group, the foodbank users, the students, the playgroup parents, the families you walk alongside through refugee and migrant ministry. We already know the people most affected, and many won't have heard.
I have wondered before what it looks like for the church to be known for what it is for, rather than what it is against. Helping our neighbours have a say in who makes decisions about their lives is a good place to start.
So Common Grace is inviting churches to hold an Enrolment Sunday in the second half of September. It involves two things:
- Playing a three-minute video as a notice during the service, made for a church audience, explaining the change in the voting enrolment rules and how to enrol.
- Having enrolment forms and a laptop or two available after the service, so people can check and update their details on the spot at vote.nz.
That's it – a couple of volunteers making this happen after a church service.
None of this is about telling anyone which party or candidate to vote for. Common Grace is explicit about that. It is about making sure that thousands of voices that would otherwise be shut out of our democracy get heard.
More information about Enrolment Sunday resources are available here, including the 3-minute video: commongrace.nz/novoiceuncounted
There is an online form here: tinyurl.com/EnrolmentSunday to receive the video, PPT slides and other resources.
Photo: Screenshot from Common Grace’s No Voice Uncounted three-minute video.
