Privacy Act 2020

Annual Report

Purpose:

To compare passport records with the electoral roll to:

identify people who are qualified to vote but have not enrolled so that they may be invited to enrol
update the addresses of people whose names are already on the roll.

DIA (Passports) disclosure to Electoral Commission: Passports provides full name, date of birth and residential address of passport holders aged 17 years and over.

Compliance: Inactive.

Technical information

Information matching provision	Electoral Act 1993, s.263B(4)(d)(ii)
Year authorised	2011
Year commenced	2011
Programme type	Identifying unclaimed entitlement Updating data

System description
The Electoral Commission (EC) operates a set of five programmes designed to identify people who are eligible to vote but are not on the electoral roll (or whose enrolment details need updating). Those who are 17 years old are invited to enrol provisionally, in anticipation of when they turn 18. These programmes are:

NZTA (driver licence)/EC Unenrolled Voters Programme;
NZTA (vehicle registration)/EC Unenrolled Voters Programme;
MSD/EC Unenrolled Voters Programme (beneficiaries and students);
DIA(Passports)/EC Unenrolled Voters Programme;
Citizenship/EC Unenrolled Voters Programme.

The files received are processed together in a sequence (NZTA drivers icneces then NZTA vehicle registration, MSD (benefits), Passports, MSD (student loans) and finally Citizenship intended to maximise the benefits from each run.

Drivers ► Vehicles ► Benefits ► Passports ► Students ► Citizenship

The process for each of the matches is essentially the same.

The source agency creates an encrypted file extract from its records of people aged 17 and over who supplied their details in the period covered by the extract. Each extract includes full name, date of birth, address(es) and the date the record was last updated. This file is picked-up by EC staff.
ES matches each extract with the electoral database on the basis of surname, given name/s and date of birth.
The addresses for matched records are compared and if the addresses are the same, the records received for matching are deleted since the EC’s records are, in effect, confirmed as current and no further action is needed.
Where the addresses differ, the ‘update dates’ are compared as EC need the most recent address. If the ‘update date’ from the source agency[1] is later than the ‘update date’ from the electoral roll record, and the EC does not have that address for that elector in their history, the details are saved to a correspondence file of individuals to be sent an invitation to update their details.
Random samples of ‘possibly matched’ records are examined manually to establish whether or not they should be regarded as matched. Where records appear to match, the process detailed in the previous paragraph is followed.
‘Not matched’ records are saved to the correspondence file of individuals to be sent an invitation to enrol.
Before any invitation letters are generated, the correspondence file is sorted to eliminate duplicates. This internal check ensures that when a client record appears in more than one source agency file, only the first such record identified is used to generate a letter to the client. This prevents EC from sending multiple invitations to an individual. EC also maintains a record of information sent to it by the Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages about deaths within the past five years. This is used to ensure that data matching correspondence is not sent to anyone who has died.
Records from the correspondence database are deleted when the electoral roll is updated for that elector, when EC receives notice of death or other special circumstances requiring that the person not be contacted again, or when it receives a ‘gone no address’ response that is not contradicted by more recent information.

The ‘no response’ category for these matches differs from other programmes in that no further action is taken in these matches if there is no response received. Non-response is not seen as a form of agreement and this programme requires a positive ‘opt-in’ response.

Recent activity

	2014/15	2015/16	2016/17	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21
Match runs	3	3	4	2	3	2	1
Records received for matching	430,931	238,865	532,132	476,840	232,621	337,999	75,549
Invitations to enrol sent out	24,065	17,851	33,105	24,294	17,515	26,022	5,411
Presumed delivered	23,384	17,447	32,253	23,601	17,131	25,652	5,299
New enrolments	4,344	2,640	4,700	4,481	2,231	2,664	1,860
Percentage of letters delivered resulting in changes	19%	15%	15%	19%	13%	10%	35%
No response	19,040	14,807	27,553	19,120	14,900	22,988	3,439
Cost	$19,088	$14,682	$28,348	$22,703	$17,742	$24,495	$6,449
Average cost per enrolment	$4.39	$5.56	$6.03	$5.07	$7.95	$9.19	$3.47

No matching runs were conducted in 2021/22 or 2022/23.

The utility of this provision was assessed in 2011: “Unenrolled Voters matches (August 2011), and again in 2016: Unenrolled Voters Programme, INZ/MoH Publicly Funded Health Eligibility Programme Matches (August 2016).

[1] The ‘update date’ supplied by the agency may be the last date the record was updated in any form, and does not necessarily relate to an updated address.