13 August 2016

Hotter contest for local body elections with updated candidate list

An overnight review of the candidate lists for the 2016 local body elections shows a total of 467 nominations for the 170 positions, including 18 for the mayoralty as at 1.00pm today.

The revised candidate numbers came after concerns were raised late Friday night about missing candidate names.

“Twenty-five candidate names lodged in the Henderson Service Centre were missed off the preliminary list last night,” said Electoral Officer, Dale Ofsoske. “It was an administrative oversight. The Electoral Office has investigated. Apologies will be made to the candidates who were not on the original list.

“The 25 candidates at the centre of our concerns were not in our system,” he said. “We undertook a search and did discover a file of 25 nominations that had been hand delivered yesterday afternoon. It appears they had not been scanned through to us earlier for processing.”

An amended list of candidates is now available (attached) with the final confirmed nomination list to be gazetted on Wednesday 17 August.

Mr Ofsoske said the revised total of 467 nominations compared with 470 in 2013and 545 in 2010.

As at 1.00pm on Saturday, 18 nominations have been received for the mayoralty, 74 for 20 ward councillor positions across 13 wards with the Franklin ward uncontested. Some 375 candidates will vie for 149 positions across 21 local boards. In addition 73 nominations have been received for 21 members for three district health boards and 64 for 35 members for five Licensing Trusts.

Voting documents will be delivered to Auckland’s one million and fifty thousand eligible voters from 16 September for the postal ballot which closes at noon on 8 October. The results will be declared on 13 October.

ENDS

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