Lorde encourages youths to vote

Pop star Lorde has recorded a series of advertisements to encourage youths to vote in her native New Zealand's upcoming election.

The Royals singer cannot take part in the ballot on 20 September (14) because she is only aged 17 but officials at the Electoral Commission have used her rising popularity to urge younger voters to have their say.

Lorde says, "Right now I don't have a voice and that's why I need you to use yours."

In a second video message, she adds, "I know sometimes politics can just seem like a bunch of old people on the TV kind of ranting at each other and it doesn't feel particularly influenced by people like us but I think that we are creative, I think that we have the kinds of ideas that will just revolutionise what it's like to live in New Zealand... and if everyone's voting, if everyone's contributing the kinds of ideas that I know you can contribute, we're set to really make things happen."