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CAMPAIGN JOURNAL: While waiting for the prime minister’s bus to arrive, a fan congratulated Labor Party member Aupito William Sio on winning the election.
Sio smiled, reminding the man that this hadn’t happened yet.
But the work Jacinda Ardern did in South Auckland on Saturday has started to look very definitive, especially as she encouraged crowds who adored her to follow her selfie with her by walking a few feet and voting.
RYAN ANDERSON / Stuff
Labor leader Jacinda Ardern is surrounded in Māngere.
Election Day is still a week away, but by Friday, more than 585,000 people had voted. Hundreds of thousands more will vote Monday at library booths, community centers and shopping centers across the country.
Ardern and his vast army of red-shirt supporters were doing their best to increase that number as they walked at a snail’s pace through the Mtara market and Māngere city center on Saturday morning.
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RYAN ANDERSON / Stuff
Jacinda Ardern stops to take a selfie.
These are intransigent Labor areas. Māngere has never been represented by anyone else, and Labor wins four times as many votes as National here. But MMP means that getting big wins in these places is still worth it for Labor, as all party votes count where they come from, and turnout in these areas is generally quite low, meaning some votes are left. on the table. There is hope within the Labor Party that too much early voting opportunities, coupled with visits like these, can change that.
“We are seeing really high turnout right now for early voting. We want to make sure everyone uses their voice until Election Day. Registration and early voting suggest that the numbers will be higher. And that can only be a good thing for New Zealand, ”said Ardern.
RYAN ANDERSON / Stuff
They will burn with a sign encouraging people to “Vote Now.”
When asked if he was trying to secure what is currently a dominant poll leader, Ardern said he just wanted to make sure people voted, and early voting eliminated the risk that they wouldn’t make it on Election Day.
“It’s about making sure we don’t leave anything to chance. If you leave it for the last day, things happen, life happens. We want to make sure people vote early so they don’t miss out.
“We have always been a party that wanted to make sure that people came out and voted. That’s why a lot of our candidates go out and vote upfront themselves, just as a sign. “
“Unfortunately, we have seen that those who are least likely to vote are often the most affected by politics.”
In his speech in a crowded city center, Ardern asked the audience to raise their hands if they had already voted, and he encouraged everyone who had not to come out and do so immediately. At Martara Markets, a volunteer walked a few steps behind her and told people through a megaphone the exact polling place right next to the market. Amidst a crowd of people in Māngere, Ardern suddenly stopped taking selfies and looked directly into the camera of a Labor cameraman, recording some kind of announcement to encourage people to vote immediately.
RYAN ANDERSON / Stuff
Labor was not the only party in Ōtara Markets.
Labor list candidate Ibrahim Omer, who travels across the country trying to get the vote out of refugee and migrant communities, said early voting appeared to help people, who had never voted before, get to the polls.
“People who have never voted before have already voted,” Omer said.
“The last few days I was in Auckland and I spoke to hundreds of people. 85% of them have already voted.
Henry Cooke / Things
Ardern records a video on social media encouraging people to volunteer for Labor.
“There will be hundreds of people from today who will go to vote.”
Political science research does not yet support the idea that early voting seriously raises turnout numbers. Voter enthusiasm is still considered much more important, along with volunteer efforts such as knocking on the door and making bank calls.
Ardern followed up his morning with a visit to a Labor telephone banking center, where dozens of volunteers were attacking telephones along with several Labor MPs.
Henry Cooke / Things
Ardern takes a selfie on a volunteer phone bank.
Ardern herself did not make any phone calls, but instead recorded a short video encouraging people to volunteer and meet with volunteers.
Epsom Labor candidate Camilla Belich said many of the phone calls were just to make sure people knew exactly where and how to vote.
“You don’t need any identification, you don’t need your EasyVote card, it’s actually very simple,” he said.
Belich probably has the worst odds of any Labor candidate in Auckland. Epsom is David Seymour’s seat, with national voters getting an intentional signal to support him and many Labor voters backing national candidate Paul Goldsmith, just for one chance to make Seymour lose.
Yet at 30th on the list, Belich is a perfect post-election candidate. She insists, like Ardern, that she takes nothing for granted, doesn’t even think beyond the next seven days of the campaign. With about two-thirds of the votes expected to come in before Election Day, it appears that many people are also sticking to the here and now.
