By Moana Ellis, Local Democracy Reporting
Fresh calls have been made to change the way local elections are run after Māori ward candidates were left out of official voting booklets in three districts.
Candidate profiles for Māori ward contenders were missing from the information packs sent to voters in Whanganui, Ōpōtiki and South Wairarapa alongside voting papers for next month’s elections.
Te Maruata, the national collective of Māori elected members within Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ), said the blunder risks undermining confidence in local elections and this year’s referendums on Māori wards and constituencies.
LGNZ is the membership organisation representing councils across Aotearoa.
Te Maruata co-chair Iaean Cranwell said voters had been denied vital information.
“The absence of candidate profile information compromises the ability of voters to make fully informed decisions.
“It also risks undermining confidence in the referendum process, where the visibility and voices of Māori ward candidates are central to the question of whether Māori wards are retained beyond this triennium,” he said.
Cranwell urged voters to seek other ways of learning about Māori ward candidates, including contacting councils directly, attending meet-the-candidate hui or visiting the policy.nz website.
LGNZ said the mistakes showed why New Zealand needs to overhaul how local elections are run.
Interim chief executive Scott Necklen said LGNZ had long held the view that local elections need to be centralised.
He said LGNZ’s Electoral Reform Working Group has recommended that the Electoral Commission take over running local elections from 2028 to provide consistency for all candidates and voters.
Necklen said while election services providers had owned up to the mistakes, the errors showed why a single nationwide provider was needed.
Awa FM – Te Reo Irirangi o Whanganui
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