A judge has ruled that the outcome of the Papatoetoe subdivision election earlier this year was likely changed by fraudulent voting, raising serious concerns about the integrity of the local body poll.
At a court hearing earlier this month, lawyers for independent electoral officer for Auckland (the respondent in the case) acknowledged there were irregularities in the way some ballot papers were used. Papatoetoe was the only Auckland electorate to record a sharp increase in turnout at the most recent local elections, with voting up more than seven percent while turnout fell across the rest of the city.
All four Papatoetoe seats were won by first-time candidates from the Papatoetoe Ōtara Action Team (POAT). However, Judge McIlraith said there was strong evidence that a significant number of votes were cast by people other than those to whom the ballot papers were addressed.
The judge said these improperly cast votes were more likely than not to have been used in favour of POAT candidates and described the level of fraudulent voting as having “permeated” the election. He concluded that the scale of the problem was sufficient to change the final result, meaning unsuccessful candidates may have been wrongly defeated.
The election was challenged by petition, which argued the result was inconsistent with historic voting patterns and warranted judicial scrutiny.
Candidates welcomed the decision and questioned the reliability of postal voting. “The system is known to be easy to interfere with, and it’s hard to ensure accountability,” said former local board member Lehopoaome Vi Hausia.
A new election will be held next year.
Image credit: Element5 Digital
Geeezzz, what has NZ come down to if we have only such choices left?
Bollywood.
OK. Welcome to Little India. Import Corruption. Shane on our elected leaders. The shame is palpable.
Looking at those dodgy mfers its no surprise.
Wake up smell the curry
Looks like a digital id will be required from now on.
You can only have a high trust voting system in a high trust society with high trust people,,,,and then there are Indians.
Welcome to the real world. Contrived election results are happening around the globe and we are not alone. Look at the part “no ID required to vote” and ‘voting machines’ have played in switching US election results over the past 20 or more years. Not just federally but state wide. European election results are also raising questions about integrity. The Afd party in Germany have mysteriously lost candidate to sickness and accidents prior to polling day according to news reports. In NZ and Australia one’s registration as a voter is linked to checked ID and where one resides but it is not foolproof. Remember the only check that occurs in a polling booth is that you have a right take a ballot paper, fill it out and put it in the box. How many valid ballots you put in the box is not checked. The point is there many ways to try and fix a result. In democracies we used to pride ourselves on the right to vote for the rep of your choice. Now if the party we vote for gets up – it may be a miracle.
I have wondered for years if there is election fraud in NZ. We need to make sure there is independent overview of all elections in this country.
Reminds me of the Gupta’s in South Africa, as long as fhey promote maximum littering I suppose
Papatoetoe or Papeetoetoe?
It’s just more of the false flags to push for Digital ID.
Wondering if the police are intelligent enough to suspect the successful candidates.
There’s definitely something dodgy going on with nz elections. I was an election scrutineer at the last general election. There were many special vote boxes and advance vote boxes that were not fully secured on election day. The managers were preventing scrutineers from knowing the numbers of advance votes, and we were all made to leave before any of the polling booth numbers were phoned in.