All are equal in one simple way

The video above is a TV commercial for the Electoral Commission urging New Zealanders to vote on September 20. It makes a simple point and does so very well, I think. It’s also a needed message.

But for me, the 15-second ad (below) is even more powerful. The brevity is part of what makes it so effective, but also that it relies heavily on New Zealandness to drive home the message. It’s a different approach to getting people to vote, the same basic message.



And finally, one of the ads the Electoral Commission has been running to urge people to enrol to vote. “Orange Guy”, as he’s called, has been in ads about voting for many years now. He’s meant to be fun and non-threatening, while also being informative. However, I’ve noticed that this year there seems to have been fewer ads about enrolling to vote. In any case, the ad below is fairly typical of the Orange Guy ads the Electoral Commission runs.



The deadline to enrol to vote to make it easy is this coming Wednesday, August 20. People can enrol right up until September 19, but they’ll have to cast a Special Declaration Vote, which can be more hassle than voting with an EasyVote card, as everyone who is enrolled by August 20 will do.

The Electoral Commission said last week that there are still 380,000 eligible New Zealanders who haven’t enrolled to vote—OVER HALF of them are under 30. If even only most of them enrolled and then voted, that’d easily enough to determine what party forms government.