Last-minute rush of local election nominations not enough to fill all seats

Newsroom

2 days ago

Analysis: It's mayhem at the offices of Electionz.com Ltd and Election Services Ltd on Friday morning, as the two council election providers process late-landing nominations for local government elections.
Christchurch-based Electionz is running the postal ballots for 47 territorial authorities and eight regional councils. The stress is palpable in the voice of harried electoral officer Warwick Lampp.
It's just two hours from the midday deadline for nominations, and 'I'm busy', he says. 'There's plenty of candidates coming in.'
Are there as many as last time? Are there enough candidates to fill the empty positions on councils and community boards? 'We're too busy to be worrying about that at this point in time,' he says. 'I've got two hours to go. My phone's going nuts all the time.'
There's a similar final day rush at Election Services in Auckland, which is running the elections for 23 councils. But Dale Ofsoske, the veteran chief electoral officer and managing director, finds a few quick minutes for Newsroom, and checks the numbers.
With two hours to go, he tells me, they have 1250 candidates – that's down on the 1490 they had in 2022. Some councils won't have enough candidates for the available governing body and board positions, he says – though we are at least tracking to have a full slate of mayors.
As the deadline approached, the election firms hadn't yet published any nominations from Dunedin mayor Jules Radich or Kawerau mayor Faylene Tunui – though both had been expected to seek re-election.
At 10am today, Gisborne mayor Rehette Stoltz was still unopposed, and on track to keep the chains without requiring a vote. So too David Moore in Ōpōtiki, and Marie Black in Hurunui.
In Kawerau, locals expected Tunui (who was unopposed in 2022) would dash off a nomination at the last minute, but weren't 100 percent sure – and Tunui wasn't answering her phone.
For now, the only mayoral candidate is councillor Carolyn Ion, but she's taking nothing for granted. 'All you can do is put your application in – your 150 words, your mug shot, all of that – then wait for midday and see who else is in.'
(Update, Friday 1.20pm: Radich and Tunui both confirm they have lodged their nomination forms, and are seeking reelection to their towns' mayoralties).
Ion agrees, nomination numbers appear low in Kawerau and nationwide. 'It's tough out there. It's a hard place to be, and you've got to have thick skin, to be in local government for your communities.'
It underscores the real problem with engagement and participation in local government – and I'm told that's been made worse by the way the Government has hung them out to dry in the past 12 months. They've been accused by the PM of wasteful spending; Local Government Minister Simon Watts has told them to stick to the basics: roads, water and rubbish.
Of course, average rates rises of 12.2 percent last year are impossible to accept or justify. Even those mayors and councillors who voted for them agree. But they claim they had no alternative, with their borrowing capacity maxed out and increasing costs imposed on them by inflation, insurance and central government.
It's a vicious downward spiral. Without enough good candidates, and without real engagement in local politics, councils will struggle to get people out to vote. And if they don't vote, they're less likely to feel any ownership of decisions.
Ion encourages anyone still dithering, their finger poised on the send key of their nomination form in the final hour, to go for it. 'It's for the good of the place. You've got to have some skin in the game. You've got to stick up for your community. Otherwise, I think we'll just be bulldozed.'
Kawerau should know. Its population of fewer than 8000 people, in a district that you can walk across in 20 minutes, has been fighting for survival as its mills close. And there's increased talk of amalgamating with other councils in the eastern Bay of Plenty, like Whakatane.
The struggle finding more than one person who even wants to be mayor can only worsen the risk that it will have to amalgamate. 'The 'A' word has been floating around ever since I walked in the place,' Ion says. 'But to retain your autonomy, to be in charge of your own your future, is really important.'
Local Government NZ's working group on electoral reform has proposed a return to in-person voting at polling booths; security services have advised that online voting isn't secure, and this may be the last local election that the flailing NZ Post can realistically get the voting papers out and back again.
Ofsoske agrees there are problems with postal voting, but he believes the answer is online. There's no security issues they can't handle, with sufficient resourcing, he says. And so we come back to the problem that councils are strapped for cash – they can't pay to invest in new election technology.
As of Wednesday, there were 47 regional council seats where there were no candidates, or only one. The country's city and district councils are similarly impacted. Like Lampp, Ofsoske remains hopeful of a last-minute rush. 'It's just human nature for people to leave it to the last minute,' he says. 'We've had a very busy last couple of days for our councils, about 250 nominations per day.'
And there is much to take heart about. There may not be a lot of candidates, but they represent a range of voices in their communities.
'What I'm observing with nominations, that have been coming in the last couple of weeks, is a good diversity of candidates, and a good spread of different nationalities to reflect the makeup of communities like Auckland. I'm really encouraged by that.'