About the New Zealand Election Study (NZES)

Since 1990, the NZES has been a leading source of research on how New Zealanders think, vote, and engage with democracy. It provides valuable data that informs election trends, public opinion, and policy development. The findings are widely used by scholars, policymakers, and government committees.

The New Zealand Election Study (NZES) has surveyed a representative (random) sample of New Zealanders from the electoral roll after every general election since 1990. Additionally, at some general elections there have also been pre-election surveys and occasionally surveys have also been carried out for some by-elections. Funding for recent election studies has come from Victoria University of Wellington, the New Zealand Electoral Commission, the University of Auckland, and individual researchers who have bought questions in the NZES. In the past, funding has also come from the Social Sciences Research Fund Committee, the Foundation for Research Science and Technology, and the University of Otago, as well as occasionally also from academics overseas. Recent surveys have been administered by the Public Policy Institute at the University of Auckland.

NZES questions focus on voting choice, political perceptions and attitudes, and social and demographic characteristics. The study is also part of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, an international collaboration of national election studies worldwide which allows for comparison of the data, as the participating studies commit themselves to a core set of questions which are asked with the same wording in all countries. The NZES’s main website can be found here.