'This really needs to change': Electoral review head criticises government's refusal to let prisoners vote

The head of the Independent Electoral Review panel says voting for prisoners is a human right.

The panel made more than 140 different proposals to improve the electoral system, but the government has already ruled out some of them - including lowering the voting age to 16 and allowing all prisoners to vote. Only people serving prison sentences of less than three years can currently vote.

Chair of the review panel Deborah Hart told Morning Report on Wednesday the law stopping prisoners serving a sentence of more than three years from voting was inherently unfair.

"People can receive different sentences for exactly the same crime. The law as it stands disproportionately affects Māori, who are imprisoned at greater rates than non-Māori. They're more likely to have a custodial sentence, they're less likely to be given leave for home detention, they're more likely to be denied parole for exactly the same crimes".

Hart said the government had the right to decide what to do with the recommendations, but she stood by allowing prisoners to vote.

"This really needs to change."

But Hart was pleased the government was taking the time to look at the whole report and consider all the recommendations.

'I don't understand' - minister

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith told Morning Report he did not know why some of the recommendations had been made.

"They've recommended a number of things, 140 recommendations, some of them, look, I don't understand where they're coming from. I don't see it as a priority to give all prisoners, people convicted of murder, the vote."

Goldsmith defended ruling out allowing prisoners to vote - regardless of their sentence length - despite a 2019 Waitangi Tribunal report recommending the same thing, after it found Māori were disproportionately affected by prisoner voting restrictions.

However, Goldsmith said the findings were not binding on the government.

"Most Māori of course are not in prison, and they have the same interests that everybody has in ensuring that we have a safe community and that prisoners have to deal with the consequences of their crime.

"One of the consequences is that you don't get to vote if you commit a very serious crime. We think that's appropriate and we've got no mind to change it."

Meanwhile, a referendum on increasing the Parliamentary term to four years was still on the table, Goldsmith said, because introducing the legislation was part of National's coalition agreement with ACT.

"We haven't committed to passing that legislation finally, but that's very much an option. What we're going to do is introduce legislation which would bring in a four-year term subject to a referendum and a number of other issues, we're going to take that to a select committee and give New Zealanders a chance to submit on that."

The review also made "useful" recommendations around improving the mechanics of the system, Goldsmith said.

Voting part of rehabilitation - activist

President of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Cosmo Jeffrey, told Morning Report that in his view "the punishment ends when the person appears in court and gets their sentence".

"From then on, the role of Corrections and the whole justice system should be to rehabilitate and reintegrate that person back into society."

He called the government's position "really punitive… I don't want to be part of a New Zealand that thinks like that".

"I was actually in prison in 2002 in Invercargill and they set up a cardboard voting booth. We all voted.

"And then after that, this amazing thing happened - there was White Power, there was Black Power, punk people and Christians and we all gathered around and for the first time in my prison experience, people started talking about, what do politicians do? What about voting? Even some of the guys said, 'Oh, I'm going to go along to those Saturday meetings and talk to the MP and let them know what happens in jail.'

"And I think that that proves that if you allow people to connect back to society, they feel like they're part of something that should be proper and it's what should happen."

When Labour gave voting rights back to prisoners serving less than three years, then-Justice Minister Andrew Little justified it by saying they would be back in the community during the term of the next government, so had the right to have a say in how the country was run.

"Let's help people connect with their community, let's give them the vote," said Jeffrey.

"It's a human right for people to vote. So why take it away?"