Source: New Zealand Parliament
Have your say on changes to prisoner voting
The Chairperson of Parliament’s Justice Committee is calling for public submissions on the Electoral (registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. The bill would allow prisoners with sentences shorter than three years to enrol to vote.
The bill also seeks to:
- Set up the process for getting other prisoners onto the electoral roll when they are released, so they can then participate in elections
- Requires prisons to engage with prisoners about the option to register as a voter. This would happen either when they are due to be released from a sentence of three years or more, or if they are serving a sentence less than three years long
- Provide for certain prisoners’ details to be entered into the “unpublished” electoral roll. This option would be available to prisoners who believed that their safety, or that of their family, would be at risk of their details were in a publicly available electoral roll.
Tell the Justice Committee what you think
Make a submission on the bill by midnight on 24 April 2020.
For more details about the bill:
