{"id":18629,"date":"2026-10-01T05:31:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T16:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18629"},"modified":"2026-10-01T05:31:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T16:31:26","slug":"auckland-councils-governing-body-votes-to-move-to-in-person-booth-voting-in-2028","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18629","title":{"rendered":"Auckland Council’s governing body votes to move to in-person booth voting in 2028"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Auckland Council’s governing body has voted to move to in-person booth voting for the next local elections in 2028.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The decision came after a morning of debates on the cost and benefits of the various options of postal voting, booth voting, or a combination of both.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The last local elections in 2025 had historically low voter turnout<\/a> and growing concerns about the security and integrity of postal voting<\/a> – after 79 votes were fraudulently cast in Papatoetoe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The majority of councillors have voted to support looking at ways to acheive booth voting for a cost of under $20 million.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Auckland Council esimates that a 10-day booth voting election would cost between $31 million and $40 million, compared with approximately $16 million for a postal election, however and amendment directing staff to look at ways of lowering this cost to $20 million, was accepted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Three councillors were not present, two abstained due to conflict of interests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Those opposing include mayor Wayne Brown, Councillor Greg Sayers and Councillor Andy Baker.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Several councillors hit out at the current postal voting system as “broken” and undermining democracy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Councillor Julie Fairey said having a system with integrity was worth the additional cost of running booth voting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She said a lack of integrity in the system would discourage people from voting in the first place, adding that the current system was “breaking”, if not broken already.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fairey said moving to booth voting would at least demonstrate that there was willingness to fix the system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Councillor Lotu Fuli who also supported booth voting asked the room: “What price are we willing to pay to protect our democracy?”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She said if nothing was done to fix the current system, then that was like rewarding fraudsters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Councillor Ken Turner, who also supported booth voting, likened the current postal voting system to a broken vehicle, and said it needed a major overhaul.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Opposing councillor Andy Baker said investing about $9 million extra into booth voting (more than the approximate $11m for an enhanced postal voting system) was like “gambling”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He said he would prefer to enhance the current system at a lesser cost.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Chair<\/div>
\u014ctara-Papatoetoe local board chair Apulu Reece Autagavaia.<\/p>\n

LDR \/ Mary Afemata<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ahead of the vote, \u014ctara-Papatoetoe local board chair Apulu Reece Autagavaia hit out at Auckland’s mayor, questioning how much he valued democracy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Autagavaia supported changing systems, after the board’s last election was voided due to claims that voting papers were stolen and used without consent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But Auckland mayor Wayne Brown questioned the cost of changing systems.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“We’re talking about possibly spending 2 percent of our rates, just to solve a couple of postal things?”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Autagavaia interrupted, asking the mayor “is that how much you value our democratic right to vote for our representatives?”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Brown pointed to concerns about the cost of living, to which Autagavaia accused the mayor of being “willing to allow fraud”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Brown said he was just trying to find a balanced solution to the problem and that “the number one issue is the cost of living”.<\/p>\n

rnz<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Auckland Council’s governing body has voted to move to in-person booth voting for the next local elections in 2028. The decision came after a morning of debates on the cost and benefits of the various options of postal voting, booth voting, or a combination of both. The last local elections in 2025 had historically low […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18631,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18629\/revisions\/18631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}