We are days from election day. It also means that it is timely to remind everyone of the rules around Election Day advertising and to make sure we stick to the rules. The bottom line is that we cannot advertise the party on election day. We cannot do any activities that promote the party or a candidate, or attack any other party or candidate. You are also prohibited from doing anything that could be said to interfere with or influence voters. Here is a run down of what you will need to do by midnight on Friday. Billboards Make sure all billboards in your electorate are taken down. This includes returning to all the private addresses and sites you have supplied and making sure the billboards are removed. If you have had any billboards stolen, make sure you let the local returning officer know the board that was stolen and the location is was taken from. This ensures that if it re-appears on election day, you have covered yourself. Returning officer details are here: elections.org.nz/events/2014-general-election/returning-officers-contact-details Leaflets Make sure you have delivered all of your leaflets by Thursday at the latest. If you, or your supporters hand-deliver election material directly to mailboxes on the Friday before election day (19 September 2014), you can expect complaints by voters who think the material arrived on election day. Those complaints will be reviewed by the Electoral Commission and where appropriate referred to the New Zealand Police. On Friday night, hopefully you have no leaflets left. If you do, them lock them up and make sure they don’t get distributed. Websites Do not put any new material onto websites on election day. Do not comment on websites on election day. Do not tweet, or posts on Facebook on election day. These rules apply until 7pm. If you have a blog, or column online you must deactivate comments on election day until 7pm. You will need to deactivate your facebook page as it is not possible to turn of comments. This will need to be deactivated until 7pm. Clothing and Party paraphernalia. You must not wear your Party clothing on election day. This includes Party T-shirts, your hoodies and ‘Party Vote’ badges. Make sure that all of your supporters and volunteers are not wearing their Party clothes on the 20th. You can put them in the wash that day so they nice and clean to put back on after 7pm for the election night party. You can wear party lapel badges or your rosette on election day, but it must be worn on your lapel. You can put party coloured ribbons on your car on the 20th, but make sure they do not contain candidate names or the party name. Other It is vital that if you have any Party bumper stickers on your car, or on supporters cars that you remove them or cover them up. For candidates who have decals on cars, you must either keep the car in the garage on the 20th, or remove the decals (so you can use the car to take voters to the polling station!!) It is vital that you follow up any supporters and volunteers who have Party badges, billboards, t-shirts, hoodies, bumper stickers or any other paraphernalia and make sure they do not display them on election day. You can find out more in the election handbook here: elections.org.nz/party-secretary-handbook/part-8-election-day Please note that this advice is not negotiable! It is important we do not expose the party to any risk of breaching the electoral act. This means that where there is uncertainty, or ambiguity we take the most risk adverse course of action. It is a criminal offence to advertise on election day and we do not want to take any chances! Thanks and good luck for the remainder of the week.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 23:47:31 +0000
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