The Electoral Commission's chief electoral officer has the ability to delay the election day in one region if it is deemed unsafe to vote.
On Monday morning Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern postponed the election to October 17, saying any further moves are up to the electoral office.
Chief Electoral Officer Alicia Wright says once Parliament is dissolved, the Commission has the power to delay voting in a region.
The Commission has been planning for an election where the country is at alert level 2, or where most New Zealand is level 2 with some areas (clusters up to 5,000) under tougher level 3 restrictions.
Beyond that, Chief Electoral Officer Alicia Wright says we could be in uncharted territory.
She told Checkpoint the Commission did not make a call on what the revised election date should be.
"We identified the different things the Prime Minister might want to consider when she was making a selection, but we didn't put forward a recommendation," Wright told Checkpoint.
After Parliament is dissolved Wright has the power to make a judgement on whether voting can go ahead safely.
"It's really designed around a whole variety of different scenarios like earthquakes or tsunamis and pandemics as well. So it's about whether or not voters can go safely into a voting place.
"What we'll need to be considering is whether people can do that, and what alternative voting mechanisms we can put in place instead."
Wright said the Commission needs to work through whether voting could go ahead as usual if many parts of New Zealand were potentially under level 3 restrictions.
"We've prepared for and are ready to deliver an election nationwide at level 2, with contact tracing, physical distancing, hand sanitiser."
It means the advanced voting period is longer, allowing more people time to access the voting booth safely, she said.
The Commission's plan so far was to facilitate an election with New Zealand under alert level 2 and clusters of up to 5,000 people around the country in level 3 restrictions.
"We were planning on clusters where we were providing a takeaway service into those clusters."
Wright said the Commission is now working with the Ministry of Health to see if voting booth venues currently allowed to operate at level 2 could still work at level 3.
"One of the things that we would need to work through and identify is if those events are much bigger area, how we could provide that service, what the options are available, and whether adjournment is an option that we would need to consider.
"Any decision around adjournment would need to be done in consultation with the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister."
Ultimately though, the decision whether the election needs to be adjourned, is up to the chief electoral officer.
"Adjournment can occur in a small area… It's not a blanket and can be quite bounded in terms of how it works," Wright said.
"The legislation is quite clear. The first two adjournment is for three days. And then each adjournment from that point is seven days onward."
The legislation does not specify how many times the seven-day adjournment can be made.
"If we were in that sort of an adjournment period, we would need to work that through on seven-day increments, and every single time it requires ensuring that we're working with the Ministry of Health in this case, but also during that consultation with the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister."
Wright said she does not know how many more people who turn 18 between the original election date and the new one will now be able to vote.
