Smacking poll ‘no’ landslide confirmed

The Dominion Post

The final results of the smacking referendum have been released, showing that more than 1.68 million ballots were cast – with 87 per cent voting ‘no’.

The poll question asked: “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”

Preliminary results released on Friday indicated 1,622,150 valid votes were cast, but with the release of the official results today that was bumped up to 1,682,717 – a voter turnout of 56 per cent.

More than 1.47 million ‘no’ votes were cast – 87.4 per cent.

Around 201,000 ‘yes’ votes were cast – 11.98 per cent.

There were 1,685 invalid votes.

Invalid votes were excluded from the count and include papers received late, those that could not be processed because the voter had made the barcode unreadable, or papers cancelled as a result of replacement voting papers being issued.

The number of informal votes cast – where the voter did not clearly indicate their response – was 10,421.

– With NZPA