PRESS RELEASE – New Zealand Maori Internet Society

The New Zealand Māori Internet Society welcome Online Voting in New Zealand recommendations

4 August 2014, For Immediate Release

The New Zealand Maori Internet Society (NZMIS), today welcomed the release of the Report of the Online Voting Working Party recommending a way forward for online voting in New Zealand and believe this will provide incentives for more Māori to register and participate in democratic voting process. NZMIS appointed its member Karaitiana Taiuru to represent the society and Maori.

The report, authored by a Working Group formed by the Minister of Local Government and Internal Affairs investigated the feasibility of online voting in New Zealand in detail and recommended that online voting should be adopted in New Zealand starting with a trial in 2016. The report found that online voting should work alongside postal or booth voting, not replace it.

NZMIS is pleased with the outcomes and believes that the process appropriately considered Māori and tikanaga. With high statistics of Māori constantly changing residential addresses, being high users of mobile phone technologies and communal Internet access, the online option will remove current barriers of access to voting. The heavy influence of social media and other web technologies with younger Māori, voting will become the norm for rangatahi.

ENDS

More information:

http://www.dia.govt.nz/online-voting

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