14 October 2016

Auckland reverses downward voting trend

Nearly 400,000 Aucklanders turned out to cast their vote in the city’s third local elections since amalgamation, arresting the decline in voter turnout and improving the city’s position, to earn the second largest percentage increase of all metropolitan centres.

A last minute rush on Saturday morning saw around 18,000 votes hand delivered to ballot boxes at council libraries and service centres across the region before thenoon deadline.

“We had a similar late flurry of eleventh hour nominations for candidates which is indicative of the way our society moves today,” Electoral Officer Dale Ofsoske said.

Official results released this morning show the final voter turnout figure in Auckland could rise to 38.5% once special results have been added in. The national voter turnout came in at 41.8%, slightly above the 2013 figure of 41.3%.
Year
Eligible voters
Turnout of voters

%
Number of voters

2016

1,031,667
38.3
394,634

2013

995,000
35.5
353,616

“Our aim was to show leadership by tackling head on the decline in New Zealand voter participation. We succeeded in halting what is a global trend,” said Phil Wilson, Auckland Council’s Governance Director.

“As the country’s largest local government with more than a million voters and an increasingly diverse and fast growing population, we have to address the barriers to voting,” he said.

Auckland Council ran a communication and engagement programme to encourage wide voter participation, including reaching out to young people and new migrants. Council undertook 80 community events, created an interactive website with candidate information for voters to make their choice as well as options of how and where to vote.

Mr Wilson said the programme, equated to an approximate cost of $1 per voter and was comparable in spend to other national and international voter awareness campaigns.

“We took democracy to the people with shopping mall visits, activations and special initiatives for people with disabilities and language needs,” Mr Wilson said.

“We largely succeeded in achieving our goals and we’ll discuss the barriers to voter and candidate involvement as part of the government enquiry into elections next year.”

The final election confirms Richard Hills as the candidate who will join Chris Darby in the North Shore ward.

A final count in the Waitemata local board saw Vernon Tava edge out Jonathan Good by just ten votes to overturn the preliminary results from Saturday.

The declaration of the Auckland local body election results will be published in the New Zealand Herald on Saturday. Full results can be seen here.

ENDS

14 October 2016

Auckland reverses downward voting trend

Nearly 400,000 Aucklanders turned out to cast their vote in the city’s third local elections since amalgamation, arresting the decline in voter turnout and improving the city’s position, to earn the second largest percentage increase of all metropolitan centres.

A last minute rush on Saturday morning saw around 18,000 votes hand delivered to ballot boxes at council libraries and service centres across the region before thenoon deadline.

“We had a similar late flurry of eleventh hour nominations for candidates which is indicative of the way our society moves today,” Electoral Officer Dale Ofsoske said.

Official results released this morning show the final voter turnout figure in Auckland could rise to 38.5% once special results have been added in. The national voter turnout came in at 41.8%, slightly above the 2013 figure of 41.3%.
Year Eligible voters Turnout of voters

% Number of voters
2016

1,031,667 38.3 394,634
2013

995,000 35.5 353,616

“Our aim was to show leadership by tackling head on the decline in New Zealand voter participation. We succeeded in halting what is a global trend,” said Phil Wilson, Auckland Council’s Governance Director.

“As the country’s largest local government with more than a million voters and an increasingly diverse and fast growing population, we have to address the barriers to voting,” he said.

Auckland Council ran a communication and engagement programme to encourage wide voter participation, including reaching out to young people and new migrants. Council undertook 80 community events, created an interactive website with candidate information for voters to make their choice as well as options of how and where to vote.

Mr Wilson said the programme, equated to an approximate cost of $1 per voter and was comparable in spend to other national and international voter awareness campaigns.

“We took democracy to the people with shopping mall visits, activations and special initiatives for people with disabilities and language needs,” Mr Wilson said.

“We largely succeeded in achieving our goals and we’ll discuss the barriers to voter and candidate involvement as part of the government enquiry into elections next year.”

The final election confirms Richard Hills as the candidate who will join Chris Darby in the North Shore ward.

A final count in the Waitemata local board saw Vernon Tava edge out Jonathan Good by just ten votes to overturn the preliminary results from Saturday.

The declaration of the Auckland local body election results will be published in the New Zealand Herald on Saturday. Full results can be seen here.

ENDS

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