Over 2022 and 2023, the review panel met with a wide range of New Zealanders and received more than 7,500 written submissions during two periods of consultation. Alongside these submissions, the panel also undertook research, looked at international case studies and experience, and considered previous reports and recommendations, including from the Electoral Commission, parliament’s Justice Select Committee, and the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System.

The report begins by outlining the wider constitutional arrangements and international and domestic human rights obligations within which New Zealand's electoral law must operate.

The panel recommends that the Electoral Act 1993 needs to be thoroughly redrafted to modernise its language, structure and content to make it easier to understand, implement and keep updated. Over time, the Act has become increasingly complex and unwieldy. It specifies how things are to be done (such as using the postal service) rather than what is to be done and to what standard, making it difficult to innovate.