Kerre Woodham: It's up to you to make sure you can vote

The changes to the way we vote. Voters will no longer be able to rock up on election day and register to vote thanks to a law change made last year, and Chris Hipkins isn't happy. The Labour Leader says the Electoral Commission isn't doing enough to make sure New Zealanders are enrolled to vote, and he's concerned that people will turn up on Election Day and find that their votes won't be counted because they're not on the electoral roll. In the past, they could see all the flags, think, “Oh, what's that all about?", wander into a voting station, “Oh, I'm not on the... Oh, I'd quite like to vote, I'm not on the roll." “No worries," the nice people at the voting stations would say. “We'll sign you up." So they'd be signed up, they'd be able to vote, and their vote would then be counted as a special vote.

Mike Butler: Voters still don't want Maori wards

Twenty-four of the 42 councils that were required to hold a referendum on Maori wards voted them out while the remaining 18 voted to keep them.

A total of 45 councils had imposed Maori wards after the Ardern government outlawed council votes on the issue in 2021.

One council, Kaipara, voted to disestablish its Maori ward when enabled to do so last year when the right to vote on the issue was restored.

Matua Kahurangi: Electoral Commission under fire for promoting pro-Māori wards messaging

ACT MP Cameron Luxton has raised concerns that the Electoral Commission is failing in its duty of neutrality by directing voters to a website that promotes pro-Māori wards messaging.

In a video released this week, Luxton walked viewers through the Commission’s official site, vote.nz, where voters might naturally expect impartial information on upcoming local elections and referendums. When clicking through to a section titled “about Māori wards and constituencies,” users are redirected to another page.

Bob Edlin: Ferris gives Hipkins another chance to spot racism in a social media post.....

Ferris gives Hipkins another chance to spot racism in a social media post – and voters food for thought about Maori wards

Political reporters have been recalling that during the 2023 election campaign Labour leader Chris Hipkins said he would not stand for “overt racism”.

“I will call it out whenever and wherever I see it,” he said.

Later, he said National’s Christopher Luxon was condoning racism by not calling it out.

Centrist: Te Pāti Māori warned by police over financial audit failures

Te Pāti Māori failed to submit its audited financial statements on time.

The party missed the July 2023 deadline, submitted an incomplete report in December, and still hasn’t produced the required audit.

The Electoral Commission referred the matter to police in October, and a formal warning was issued on 19 December.

Centrist: NZ election inquiry: submissions on voter fairness and electoral reform

Market researcher Geoff Neal of The Facts’ submission to the NZ Justice Select Committee on the 2023 General Election has gone viral online.

Neal tackled several electoral issues, including concerns about media bias, voting processes, and political advertising. His analysis pointed to systemic flaws impacting voter trust and election outcomes.

Centrist: Chief electoral officer falls on his sword.....

Chief electoral officer falls on his sword: admits failure over Manurewa Marae voting site

The Electoral Commission has admitted mishandling the perceived conflict of interest in using Auckland’s Manurewa Marae as a voting location during the 2023 election, where the marae’s CEO, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, ran successfully for Te Pāti Māori in Tāmaki Makaurau.

David Farrar: Why won’t Te Pati Maori comply with the law?

The Electoral Commission announced:

A referral has been made to Police on 4 October 2024 relating to Te Pāti Māori’s failure to file annual financial statements with the Electoral Commission. The financial statements and accompanying audit report were due on 30 June 2024 under sections 210G and 210H of the Electoral Act.

Point of Order: Buzz from the Beehive - 25/10/24

Yelps tell us Willie Jackson was stung by Beehive news about Richard Prebble sitting on the Waitangi Tribunal

An announcement from the Beehive yesterday had the distinct whiff of “jobs for the boys” about it – the appointment of Richard Prebble as a member of the Waitangi Tribunal.

Nevertheless it’s fair to suppose there will be significant support for the prospect – or hope – of Prebble tempering the tribunal’s zeal for censuring the Crown.

KSK: And Still, We Wait

Small children can count faster than the Electoral Commission

The Electoral Commission is responsible for yet another no-government government, and it is a further insult to the voting public that we continue to have the losing PM as the actual, if so-called caretaking, PM. As Capitalist said well on the BFD, “What Mr Christopher Luxon should do is head to Government House and be sworn in as the ‘caretaker’ Prime Minister.”

Heather du Plessis-Allan: The head of the Electoral Commission needs to go

I don’t know Karl Le Quesne the guy who runs the Electoral Commission.  

He seems like a serious sort of man who takes his job seriously which is the kind of person I quite like.  

So I have nothing against him, but he has to lose his job over the stuff ups this election.  

There have been too many stuff ups:

Kerre Woodham: The Electoral Commission is too incompetent to be corrupt

I am absolutely confident that there is no corruption within our Electoral Commission.

I do not believe for one wild second that they have been manipulating the voting system to get the result they want. Nor do I believe that they're being paid by Russia to produce the results Russia wants. And the reason I'm so confident is that they are so incompetent they wouldn't be able to deliver on the contract.

They simply wouldn't be able to do it.

Mike Hosking: The Electoral Commission couldn’t have made a bigger hash of this

Is the Electoral Commission the most useless Government department going?

The counting for three weeks, to be fair, is required by law. But when it's done problems have now been found in 15 different places and, unlike the revelation on the first three places, National's vote has been materially affected and has now gone up.

What else? There was the issues over voting papers being unavailable on the day as well.

Ele Ludemann: Was nobody thinking?

The Electoral Commission has made another blunder:

The Electoral Commission is under intense scrutiny over its decision to set up a polling booth at Manurewa Marae, where Te Pāti Māori candidate Takutai Moana Kemp is the CEO.

This issue is part of a larger probe into election conduct at the marae, in the wake of a tightly contested race in Tāmaki Makaurau, which saw Kemp secure victory over Labour MP Peeni Henare by just four votes — a stark contrast from the 495-vote lead Henare held on election night. . .