Luxon expects 2026 enrolment higher than previous elections

National leader Christopher Luxon expects enrolment for the 2026 election to be higher than in previous elections, despite changes to the enrolment rules. He told RNZ's Morning Report programme, in an interview with host John Campbell, that he had seen provisional enrolment numbers.

Luxon said he expects the final numbers, due at the end of the week, to be already higher than or around the levels recorded in 2017 and 2014.

The most recent published figure is 92.4%. That is the share of eligible people who had enrolled as of the Friday before enrolment closed, according to RNZ. In 2023 the figure was 94.7%, a gap of about 300,000 people. Enrolment rates in 2014 and 2017 were 92.6% and 92.4% respectively.

Enrolment for the 2026 election closed on Sunday. Since then, people have not been able to enrol or change their details. That follows changes by the coalition government which ended same-day enrol-and-vote, the option of signing up to the electoral roll and casting a vote on the same day. Luxon told Morning Report that people have had about a year since the enrolment decisions were announced to get organised.

Luxon said the gap between enrolling and voting was no different to the approach taken in Australia, the UK, Ireland and France.

Labour is promising to reverse the coalition's enrolment changes. Tangi Utikere, standing in for leader Chris Hipkins, described the changes as anti-democratic. Hipkins and Luxon both urged New Zealanders to enrol before the midnight deadline, 1News reported.

The Electoral Commission, the body that runs elections, was expected to release the latest enrolment data on Monday afternoon. The general election is scheduled for 7 November.

In its report on the 2020 election, the commission described allowing enrolment on election day as a substantial law change.