Subscribe to RSSBanks Wants Postal Voting Reviewed
I’m amazed how many people don’t realise the vote for supermayor and council is a postal one.
And this afternoon Auckland Mayor John Banks is calling for a review of the local body election postal system.
He said there is the potential for abuse of the system as has been reported in the media recently.
“This is clearly happening in Manukau where people are enrolling dozens of supporters to one address in order to increase the vote for their favoured candidates. These incidents cast great doubt on the integrity on the postal vote system and if elected Mayor, I intend to ask the Government to review the way in which local government votes are cast.”
Other problems are if you are overseas when the ballot papers get posted this coming Friday, and you don’t get back until after 9th October, then you are disenfranchised as there is no provision for special voting outside the period or for voting while overseas.
He said people need to fill in their votes quickly as if your paper is not filled out and sent back within the period of 18 September – 9 October, your vote will not be counted.
5 Comments
I agree with him, I also think that it leads to more and more people forgetting to vote, they see the voting paper and think, I’ll just do that tomorrow then never do.
Local Government in all its aspects (rates, service delivery cost recovery, elections, electoral system) is creakingly antiquated.
Well, as long as they aren’t going for eVoting, where I then have to trust that the lowest bidder (hah!) will keep my data safe from spies and hackers (hah!) and my election results from tampering (yeah right!). I think votes should be in person, with mail-in votes only in exceptions.
karl, the Electoral Commission has been investigating e-voting for a while. Given the very, very high value placed on secure, accurate results for general elections in NZ (as contrasted with the US, for example), I wouldn’t rush to dismiss e-voting as an option for local body elections. If they come up with a solution that they’re happy to deploy for general elections, we can probably be fairly comfortable that it’s reliable and secure, unlike the shit that gets placed before US voters.
I tend to agree, but I would go further and say that I am unimpressed that the candidates (including John Banks) are allowed to continue - for all intense purposes - to campaign while the voting process is underway. Surely local body elections should follow the same philosophies as central-state elections, especially for the largest city (and economy) in the country.