Young people in new Auckland electorate need more to believe their vote matters <\/p>\n
Young people in Auckland’s new Henderson electorate say more needs to be done to encourage them that their vote matters.<\/p>\n
The electorate has been reformed with new boundaries – covering Henderson, R\u0101nui, Swanson, Lincoln, Massey, Western Heights, and parts of Te Atat\u016b and Upper Harbour.<\/p>\n
Just 56 percent of those aged 18 to 24 years old are enrolled to vote in the electorate, compared to 62 percent nationally.<\/p>\n
The Green’s Alika Wells, Opportunity’s Almo Wong, the National Party’s Angee Nicholas, independent Kay Luv and ACT’s Nick Peirce, all in the running to become Henderson’s local MP.<\/p>\n
Also in the running is Labour’s Phil Twyford, who’s been the MP for the old Te Atat\u016b electorate since 2011.<\/p>\n
Checkpoint spoke to some young people who live in the electorate.<\/p>\n
They said the enrolment rates were low because many felt disenfranchised.<\/p>\n
Another said, “Maybe because some of us just don’t really care about politics these days. And we don’t really know anything about it.”<\/p>\n
For the issues most important for young people ahead of the election..at the top of the list was unemployment.<\/p>\n
Henderson local Fred said many of his friends have been struggling to find work in Auckland.<\/p>\n
“To be honest, employment, it’s like, really hard to find a job. I was lucky, you know. I managed to get a job with the Defence Force, but not everybody’s this lucky, so [there’s] heaps of unemployed. A lot of my mates as well, some lost their jobs, some can’t even get a job.”<\/p>\n
Nursing student Angie said high unemployment rates made her feel uneasy.<\/p>\n
“I’ve studying nursing and I’m thinking about like how right now there’s not a lot of jobs going around.”<\/p>\n
Others told Checkpoint the cost of living was what they were most worried about.<\/p>\n
“I’m poor each day. It’s just a struggle to get by each week … I’m a student.<\/p>\n
“With gas and just especially groceries, everything’s pretty much skyrocketing.”<\/p>\n
Those Checkpoint spoke to also said politicians are failing to engage with young people.<\/p>\n
Fred said he was reminded to enrol to vote by his parents.<\/p>\n
“For young people finding it hard to vote it’s just lack of word. Not a lot of people are hearing about it. I think that’s what’s holding young people back.”<\/p>\n
“I feel like it would be better if, say, 16-year-olds were able to vote just early on. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that adherently,” another said.<\/p>\n
Another said, “At least if it was just talked about more because I think [for] a lot of people it’s just really overwhelming or a really daunting thing to like get into.”<\/p>\n
But they all agreed, that more needed to be done in encouraging young people that their vote matters.<\/p>\n
The overall enrolment rate is at 91 percent, but for young people aged 18 to 24 it is just over 62 percent.<\/p>\n
In 2023, 77 percent of people aged 18 to 24 were enrolled to vote.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Electoral Commission’s Karl le Quesne told RNZ the Electoral Commission had been visiting schools to try and get the enrolment rate up.<\/p>\n
They had also been working with community groups and youth groups.<\/p>\n
“We’d like it to be a lot higher,” he said.<\/p>\n
The 2026 general election will be held on 7 November.<\/p>\n
Under the new rules, eligible voters must enrol or update their details by midnight on 25 October to vote, with voting places opening for advance voting on 26 October.<\/p>\n
People who are not enrolled by the deadline will not be able to vote in the election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Young people in new Auckland electorate need more to believe their vote matters Young people in Auckland’s new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-625515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}