With new, stricter voting laws this election, Pacific-majority electorates with young populations are most at risk.

The day after the 2023 election, I analysed the results for Pacific-majority electorates Māngere and Panmure-Ōtāhuhu and found the preliminary turnout votes were way down and almost all the missing votes were taken from Labour. I wrote that the historically Labour-aligned Pacific voters hadn’t switched to National but had simply opted not to vote.

Turns out I was wrong. Pacific people were still voting (and voting for Labour), they were just leaving it late. Once the special votes (which include those cast by people who enrol at the same time as voting) were counted, the turnout picture actually looked much the same as 2020. 

But the special votes did more than disprove my post-Election day theory. They revealed something else about the Pacific vote. While special votes had increased massively across the country (21% of total votes cast, up from 17% in 2020 and 2017), the jump was even greater in Pacific electorates. Special votes made up 32% of votes cast in Panmure-Ōtāhuhu, 27% in Māngere and 33% in Manurewa. The vast majority of these votes were cast in New Zealand and went to Labour.

Auckland Central (34%), Epsom (30%) and Wellington Central (29%) also had high special vote turnouts but in those electorates, about a third of specials were overseas votes. 

Why bang on about 2023 now? Because what I inadvertently learned three years ago could be about to rip a massive hole in the Pacific vote come November.

Changes made to electoral law in January have disqualified same-day enrolment, with the final day to enrol to vote being 13 days before election day. This change will be disproportionately felt by Pacific voters, who are already less likely to vote than any other demographic. Auckland’s Māngere, Panmure-Ōtāhuhu and Manurewa had the three lowest general electorate turnouts in the country in 2023 – all below 65%, a full 5% behind the next lowest electorate (Kelston, also with a large Pacific population).

Nearly half the Pacific population in New Zealand is under 25. Māngere is considered the most youthful electorate in the country, with the highest proportion of children and one of the lowest proportions of people aged over 55. In a recent poll of Pacific voters conducted by Horizon for Pacific Media Network, just over half of respondents aged 18-24 said they were enrolled to vote, and of them, only a third said they would definitely vote come election day. 

This uncertainty is not necessarily unusual for young people, and likely explains the sharp rise in special votes cast in the last election, but in 2023, last-ditch efforts from parties during the voting period (plus a bit of fomo) would have inspired younger voters to head to the polls and enrol at the same time. This year, it’ll be too late.

The task ahead for Labour’s Pacific women

Labour has the most to lose if up to a third of Pacific voters can’t or don’t vote this election. Despite the party’s poor performance in 2023, losing a number of marginal seats to National, Te Pāti Māori and the Greens, it was the Pacific electorates that remained Labour strongholds.

That means Barbara Edmonds (Mana, now Kenepuru), Carmel Sepuloni (Kelston, now Glendene), Jenny Salesa (Panmure-Ōtāhuhu) and Lemauga Lydia Sosene (Māngere) will be tasked not only with convincing their constituents to vote Labour on election day but with ensuring they’re enrolled and able to vote at all. But how?

The Covid example

Perhaps more so than any other demographic, Pacific communities still mobilise as blocs. For many, that takes the form of a church, but other school, community and even online organisations offer the same connection. Politicians will have learned this from Covid, where typically vaccine-hesitant communities turned out in force during vaccination drives, thanks in large part to church, social media influencers and community leaders encouraging it, at the request of government MPs and the prime minister.

Anecdotally, I have heard stories of non-Pacific MPs gaining traction in South Auckland electorates with one simple trick: visiting the biggest Pacific churches (just once or twice) outside of an election campaign. At the 2018 census, the Māngere electorate ranked number one for Pacific people, people who spoke Samoan, and people of Christian faith. While churches don’t play as big a part in younger Pacific people’s lives, social media is heavily favoured over traditional media for information-sharing and candidate exposure.

Slim party pickings

Labour doesn’t have much competition out there for those potentially missing Pacific votes. Other than Teanau Tuiono with the Greens, no other party even has a Pacific MP. There are some small attempts from National and NZ First to win ground in Pacific-but-not-overwhelmingly-so west Auckland, with Angee Nicholas standing in the new Henderson electorate for National after narrowly losing to Phil Twyford in Te Atatū in 2023, and former National minister for Pacific peoples Alfred Ngaro representing New Zealand First in Glendene against Sepuloni.

So far, Labour, National and the Greens have all announced policies aimed at tackling the cost of living, which 90% of Pacific voters said was their main concern heading into the election. However we’re yet to see any major effort to target those policies and what they mean directly to Pacific voters. 

The big unknown

Overall, the picture seems bleak. Pacific voter numbers may tank and accidentally prove my erroneous 2023 post-election thesis… sort of. I suspect the vote numbers will be down, just not really by choice. But with both Mana and Kelston merging into new electorates for 2026, it will be hard to accurately compare turnout in those Pacific communities. Māngere and Panmure-Ōtāhuhu, however, will be clear signals of how successful Labour is at ensuring young Pacific voters are engaged early.