Political Participation and Electoral Change in Nineteenth-Century New Zealand

Abstract

This article suggests that it is important to look at the early decades of elections in New Zealand’s political history, a time when many believe that politics was undemocratic and political participation was low. In order to evaluate this issue statistics on the numbers voting and electorates contested have been generated by extensive newspaper research for the general elections in the period 1853 to 1876, on which the Re is little information. In these early elections the issues lay more in the failure to register on the electoral rolls and considerable numbers of uncontested electorates than in exclusion due to the property franchise or failure to vote by those registered. The article concludes that politics was more democratic and participation higher than usually thought. In the latter part of the nineteenth century increases in registration and in voter turnout are examined as a precursor for political parties and high levels of political participation that became characteristic of modern-day electoral politics in New Zealand.

• History of elections
• electoral statistics
• voting behaviour