UPDATED: MAI CHEN: Legal advice to the PM on setting the election date

Sun, 16 Aug 2020

This article has been to clarify references to dates for decision-making. If I had to advise the Prime Minister in the next 48 hours about whether to move the current proposed election date of Sept 19, then I would tell her the options are limited by the Constitution Act and the Electoral Act. These limits are constitutional safeguards New Zealand has in place to protect our system of participatory democracy. If the new confirmed cases of covid-19 are contained and from just one cluster, she could retain that date. The Electoral C...

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