Ōtara-Papatoetoe election re-do a 'nail in the coffin' for postal voting - law professor

A law professor says a judge's order for a new election to take place for seats on an Auckland local board - due to manipulation of voting papers - is another "nail in the coffin" for the postal voting system for local elections.

Former Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board deputy chairperson Lehopoaome Vi Hausia took a petition to the Manukau District Court, calling for a judicial inquiry, after receiving reports of voting papers stolen from residents.

Vi Hausia did not get re-elected, coming fifth after four candidates from the Papatoetoe-Otara Action Team - Paramjeet Singh, Sandeep Saini, Kushma Nair and Kunal Bhalla - secured the four seats in the Papatoetoe subdivision of the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board.

The inquiry identified 79 voting papers cast without voters' knowledge.

Judge Richard McIlraith on Tuesday ruled that irregularities had materially affected the election results and voided the Papatoetoe subdivision's election results.

Otago University's Professor Andrew Geddis said the ruling was significant in that it was the first electoral petition that had led to findings of deliberate attempts to manipulate the results of an election in New Zealand.

"It's very worrying, whenever one of our democratic processes is found to have so fundamentally failed that we just cannot trust the results, because of course it's the process of electing people that then allows our system of government to work," he said.

Professor Geddis said it was a "wake-up call" for New Zealand to rethink how local elections needed to be run in the future.

"What it does show, though, is that the postal voting system that we use is susceptible to this sort of manipulation or this sort of irregularity,

"Another perhaps nail in the coffin of using the postal system to run local elections," he said.

Professor Geddis said the most secure system would be an in-person voting system, which was used in national elections.

He said while that would cost more than the current postal system, it was worth the investment.

"Given those risks and the costs that then come with having to redo elections, the cost of not changing may well in the future be as much, or even greater than moving to a system that's secure and more trustworthy," he said.

"I suspect that what we're going to find, is we just are going to have to bite the bullet and say, if we want to have trustworthy elections that produce legitimate outcomes, we're going to have to pay to allow that to happen," he added.

Complaints handed on to police - lawyer

The lawyer for Lehopoaome Vi Hausia, Simon Mitchell, KC, told Morning Report 53 of the 79 people applied for special votes on the basis they hadn't received a voting paper. It soon emerged votes had already been received in their names.

Of those votes, 51 were for the newly elected members, he said.

In some streets in the subdivision there was an increase of more than 100 percent compared with the 2022 election.

Across the subdivision there was a 7.5 percent increase in voting. No other local board had seen an rise and for the Auckland Council there was a decrease in voting.

"So Papatoetoe was a total outlier in terms of special votes where a vote had already been cast..."

Mitchell said it would not have been difficult for the judge to conclude that there had been irregularities and a new election would be needed.

"He found that there was enough evidence that the result could have been different."

Sixteen complaints have been made to the returning officer and some were now being investigated by the police.

It was a serious offence to vote for somebody else, and it could be punished by a two-year jail term, he said.

The safety of the postal voting system would also need to be examined. It might lead to more disengagement with participation in local body elections, he said.

Police said their investigation was still ongoing.

Electoral officer ready for new election

Meanwhile, the independent electoral officer for Auckland Dale Ofsoske said he was ready to undertake a new election for the Papatoetoe seats in the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board, which was estimated to cost between $175,000 and 200,000.

He said any voting system had its weaknesses, and it was a matter of mitigating the risks and informing voters when to check for their postal voting papers.

Ofsoske said the new election date for the Papatoetoe seats would be 9 April next year, and would also be done through postal ballot voting.

Voting packs would be delivered in early March, he said.

The minister for Local Government Simon Watts said in as statement that what occured was "disappointing".

"This is a matter that I am watching very closely, and I will continue to assess the situation," he said.

However, he said the processes showed that appropriate guardrails were in place and functioning as they should.

"Local councils are responsible for running their own elections, in this matter the case was referred to police by the council and its electoral officer and a petition for inquiry was brought by a candidate who noticed something unusual. This is in line with the appropriate process," he said.

Meanwhile, Papatoetoe-Otara Action Team's Kushma Nair was not available for an interview on Tuesday.

"I am looking into the matter and am not in a position to comment until I get full information," he said in a text message.

Kunal Bhalla, spokesperson for the Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team, said on Wednesday it was reviewing the decision with legal counsel.

"As the judgment itself records, the Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team candidates were not parties to the court proceedings, and we therefore have not previously had the opportunity to engage with or respond to the matters raised through the judicial process," Bhalla said.

Bhalla said the team would issue a consolidated response addressing any matters raised once the review had been completed.

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