Scrap postal voting to lift turnout and end fraud says Auckland Council candidate

13 September 2010: The government should scrap postal voting in local body elections to help restore voter turnout and stop fraud, Auckland Council candidate Graeme Hunt says.
 
He says postal voting has proved an unmitigated failure, with turnout dropping in most elections since 1992 and voting irregularities increasing.
 
Hunt, who is the North Now candidate for the Auckland Council’s Albany ward, says postal voting offered high hopes when it became compulsory in 1989 but, in reality, has debased local democracy.
 
“North Shore had the lowest turnout for elections to any city council in the 2004 and 2007 elections –– 35.2 per cent and 35 per cent respectively –– and the prospects are not looking good this time around,” he says.
 
“Postal voting undermines the sanctity of the voting system. It robs absentee voters of a local democratic voice and it makes electoral fraud much easier.
 
“Across the country in 2007 voter turnout was a miserable 44 per cent, suggesting major flaws in the postal voting system.
 
“The traditional polling-booth method of voting has much more going for it. It makes election night important by creating a higher level of public interest and a sense of occasion.”
 
• North Now is an independent North Shore/North Harbour ticket standing candidates for the Auckland Council, local boards and the Waitemata District Health Board.
 

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