The Hard Right have infected privatised Local Elections and Kiwis have no idea

ByMartyn Bradbury

The vast number of Kiwis do not known that our local democracy has been privatised to just 2 private companies, it is NOT run by the Electoral Commission!

  • Election Services – an Auckland-based company that runs elections for Auckland Council and several other North Island councils.

  • electionz.com – a Christchurch-based company that provides election services (including postal voting and online voting systems) for many South Island and some North Island councils.

Look at the impact of privatising local elections over that time on participation rates:

  • 1992–1998: turnout in the 50–55% range.

  • 2001 (Local Electoral Act introduced, outsourcing becoming the norm): turnout dropped to ~47%.

  • 2004–2010: around 43–49%.

  • 2013–2019: fell further to 39–42%.

  • 2022: hit a modern low of ~36% nationwide.

Ever since we privatised our local elections, turn out has crashed, and that’s because these two private companies don’t care about the participation rate, they care about making money on their contracts!

Last Auckland Mayoralty election in 2022,  there were barely a dozen polling booths where you could cast a special vote if you weren’t enrolled. Many poor people and renters bounce from house to house to house and their instability makes it difficult to update election details to vote.

12 booths for a city with 1.2million.

That is the sort of voter suppression that would make the Republicans blush.

By outsourcing our local elections to private companies, we have destroyed our participation rates, it is time to remove all contracts from these two companies and take the elections back into the Electoral Commission and run them with the same level of funding we run National Elections!

When you consider the mass mistakes made in this current electoral cycle…

Hastings voting booklet blunder leaves 27 candidates’ profiles missing

…and the pitiful turn out to date, we must save our local democracy from being hijacked by Right Wing Hate groups and focus on the common good.

More participation guarantees that quality of democracy, less allows Right Wing Hate groups to dominate.

Bryce Edwards makes the point that Local Elections are utterly dominated by the polluter industry using astroturf organisations to trick you into voting for them…

 

…people don’t comprehend that the rates cap, Groundswell, anti-environmental measures and small Government morality is all part of a cleverly constructed con job to trick you into agreeing to their agenda while pretending to respond to your anger that they whip up!

The Left simply have none of the sophistication (or funding) of these astroturf organisations and that’s why and how they outmanoeuvre us in elections.

ACT having rich culture war arseholes self fund their own campaigns is perfect branding for their niche of bigotry while Taxpayers’ Union give most bang for Federated Farmer, NZ Initiative and Hobsons Pledge buck.

The manipulation of these forces will be the most telling part in the Local Election results.

 

Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.

Similar Posts

- Advertisement -

10 Comments

  1. There are spots around Auckland where candidates put their hoardings up on roadside council land but there is no signage in those spots about how, where or by when to vote.

    1. Well considering the hard left have infiltrated the public service, education, ngo’s and the media, its only fair.

  2. I fear that in Auckland we are going to see the participation rate drop to the mid 20’s which will very likely hand the extreme voices for free-dumb and Winston First aligned candidates a win. There has been little or no effort expended to publicise the elections and a concerning number of people I have talked with on the topic are not aware that voting is even occuring even among otherwise politically engaged people.

    1. When you google the election google finds the election website easily enough but then you have to dig in 5 clicks deep to find a list of polling booth locations. While that’s a first world problem it’s not like they are actually advertising where to cast a vote.

  3. The contracts with private organisations that run local-body elections should contain turnout targets, timeframes for achieving those targets and penalties for failure. Ultimately there should be cancellation of contracts by the Local Government Minister if failure is repeated, and the job should be handed to the Electoral Commission. An acceptable target turnout should be around 70% – a bit lower than general elections.
    I’m not convinced though that privatisation of how local body elections are run is the root cause of plummeting turnout, However, it may mean that there is no incentive to stop the decline.

    The network diagram of right-wing influence groups is also a factor in general elections where turnout is much higher. Therefore, I don’t think it’s a cause of declining turnout. However, because it is mainly the ‘sorted’ who do vote in local elections, this influence network may be able to shift the few who do vote into even more extreme positions. At all levels (national and local), this influence network is likely to produce governments with a higher proportion of idiots.

  4. Who in their right mind, would stand for local bodies councils and such,.
    My Town, was once the first city of N,Z. nOW MARGINAL AS A CITY , yet on the side walk, the parks the back of cars vans, and wherever allowed council chancer!s are allowed to drop a pick look vote for me council.
    The wana bees, all over my town, and yes steal, so much so, correct some left of center others ,most right as a leaning crutch support for aid. What minimum voters going to invest in a vote, wil be right crutch leaning, and past to today, voters turning up,best ever 40 odd percent in most will be 34 percent for the right leaning crutch.
    You get what we vote for.

  6. The coordinated hard right has certainly turned its attention to local government and, as always, the progressives have been unable to respond effectively. Absoltuely a major concern.
    Where this piece veers off-track is linking the decline in voting to the privatisation of election services.
    First, there’s no counter-factual, but experience elsewhere is that, “Low voter turnout in local elections is a problem worldwide.” (https://theconversation.com/another-local-election-another-low-turnout-syncing-local-and-general-elections-could-be-the-answer-265385)
    Secondly, The private companies only provide the clerical-type services, handling candidate nominations, vote counting, etc. My own direct experience with the Auckland operation is that it was meticulous in doing so and unbiased. Campaigns for voting promotion are the responsibility of the Electoral Commission (the Orange Man) and councils. The Auckland Council advertising is cheesy and lame, and the efforts on the ground pathetic, but that’s our Council. The voting methods used are decided by councils. In Auckland, the Council is still hesitates about electronic voting as the postal systems dies. I can’t remember the last time I posted a letter. Post boxes are disappearing, but a number of supermarkets had ballot boxes this time as well as libraries, etc. The serious lack of special vote facilities impacted me directly last time, but that is also a council responsibility.
    In short, the causes of low turnout are complex, universal, and the privatised election services are not to blame.

Comments are closed.