If you are eligible to enrol, it is compulsory to enrol under the Electoral Act 1993, and failing to do so is an offence.
We collect personal information when you enrol to vote or update your enrolment details. Find out what enrolment details we collect, how we use and protect them, and your rights to access and correct that information.
If you are eligible to enrol, it is compulsory to enrol under the Electoral Act 1993, and failing to do so is an offence.
Are you eligible to enrol and vote?
We collect personal information when you fill in a paper or online enrolment form, or update your enrolment details. We’ll use this information to confirm that you can enrol to vote and for ongoing enrolment and voting purposes.
We ask for your:
- full name
- date of birth
- address information
- title or honorific
- occupation
- contact phone numbers
- contact email address.
We also ask whether you’re of Māori descent. If you confirm you’re of Māori descent, we'll keep that information and you can choose whether to join the Māori roll or the general roll.
If you enrol or update your details online, we’ll ask for your New Zealand driver licence, New Zealand passport or RealMe verified identity to confirm your identity.
Learn more about enrolling or updating your details online
We're careful with your personal information
We use the information you give us to keep the electoral rolls up to date for general elections, referendums and local elections and to carry out our statutory duties to deliver enrolment and voting services. We also give your personal information to other people and organisations when the law requires or allows it. We only use your information for these purposes.
We follow the rules in the Electoral Act 1993 and the Privacy Act 2020.
We do not release your date of birth, phone numbers or email address to the public.
Some of your personal information goes on the electoral rolls, which are public
An electoral roll lists everyone in an electorate who’s enrolled to vote. When you enrol, we add you to an electoral roll, which lists your:
- full name
- home address
- occupation (if you provide it – it’s optional).
Anyone can look at or buy electoral rolls. You can view them at selected public libraries and Electoral Commission offices.
The unpublished roll protects people whose safety is at risk
If you're concerned that having your details on an electoral roll could threaten your personal safety, or that of your family, you can ask to go on the unpublished roll. We don’t release the details of people on the unpublished roll to anyone.
The law requires us to give lists of people who are enrolled to vote to certain people and organisations when they ask for them.
These lists may have your personal information on them. This includes information that’s not publicly available on the electoral rolls, such as date of birth or the age range you're in and whether you’re of Māori descent.
These people and organisations can get lists of people who are enrolled to vote:
- the Tūhono iwi affiliation service
- local councils
- the Ministry of Justice
- political parties, candidates and MPs
- Stats NZ for statistical and research purposes under the Data and Statistics Act 2022
- state sector organisations for research purposes.
If you’re of Māori descent, we'll ask for permission to give your information to Tūhono
If you tell us you’re of Māori descent, we'll ask you for permission to give your information to the Tūhono iwi affiliation service. We'll also ask you which iwi or Māori organisations you want Tūhono to give your information to.
Visit Tūhono’s website to find out more about what they do
We give your information to your local council for elections, by-elections and polls
We give local councils a list of people who are enrolled to vote in their area to run local elections, by-elections and polls.
Learn more about local elections
Councils can also make special requests for information they can use for other purposes.
We may give your information to the Ministry of Justice to create jury lists
The Ministry of Justice asks us for lists of people who are enrolled to vote to create jury lists.
Visit the Ministry of Justice website to find out more about jury service
We may give your information to parties, candidates and MPs
Parties, candidates and MPs can ask us for lists of people who are enrolled to vote. They may use the lists for purposes such as polling and campaigning.
How parties get lists of people who are enrolled to vote
How candidates get lists of people who are enrolled to vote
We may give your information to Stats NZ
The Government Statistician can apply for a list of electors for the production of official statistics or research under the Data and Statistics Act 2022.
We won’t give your phone numbers or email addresses
We don’t give phone numbers or email addresses to parties, candidates and MPs. However, they may find out how to contact you by combining the information we give with other information they collect.
We may give your information to state sector organisations for research
State sector organisations can apply to us for a list of people who are enrolled to vote. The organisation must need the list to conduct human health or scientific research.
We can match information about people on the electoral rolls with information that other government agencies hold. We can match information to identify people who:
- are qualified to vote but haven’t enrolled, so we can invite them to enrol
- we can invite to update their address on the electoral roll.
The Privacy Commissioner oversees information matching and writes a yearly report on each programme.
We take part in five information matching programmes:
New Zealand Transport Agency (driver licence) and Electoral Commission Unenrolled Voters Programme
Department of Internal Affairs (passports) and Electoral Commission Unenrolled Voters Programme
Department of Internal Affairs (citizenship) and Electoral Commission Unenrolled Voters Programme
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s website has more information about information matching:
You have the right to see a copy of any personal information we hold about you and to ask us to correct it.
Contact our privacy officer to ask for a copy of your information or get it corrected.
You can also contact our privacy officer if you have any questions, concerns or complaints about what happens with your personal information.
Address
The Privacy Officer
Electoral Commission
PO Box 3220
Wellington 6140
Phone 04 495 0030
Email enquiries@elections.govt.nz