Last chance to cast your vote

October 8, 2013

Kāpiti District voters are being advised to hand in their votes as the local election deadline draws near, for fear their vote may miss out if there are any delays with mail.

Jude Wadsworth, Kāpiti Coast District Council’s Electoral Officer, says that the absolute deadline for receipt of the vote in a ballot box is noon this Saturday (October 12).

“Anything received after that time is invalid. Even a posted vote which went in the mail earlier but was not received until after the deadline is disqualified by law. After today (October 8) it is a risk to rely on mail.

“If people want their vote to count, it is essential they ensure the papers go into a ballot box before Saturday noon, and the best way to do so is place it there personally by hand.”

Miss Wadsworth says there have been past instances of people missing out on voting because they did not know the rules.

“At the last elections we had people turn up in the afternoon, thinking that Voting Day ran right through the day, as with General Elections. However local elections follow a different timetable.”

The procedure is that at noon this Saturday the ballot boxes are closed and the final counting begins – although the “progressive counting” system means that votes already received by hand or mail are counted as they come in.

Kāpiti has a team of 14 working on the count, with a Justice of the Peace present at all times. No voting paper can be opened or processed without the JP witnessing it.

By lunchtime today, 29.62% of the 37,480 voting papers issued had been returned and counted across the Kāpiti wards. This compares with 36.3% at the same time in the October 2010 elections.

The total vote count in the Kāpiti 2010 local body elections was 49% and 53% in 2007.

Miss Wadsworth says there has been healthy interest in the Kāpiti elections with the election team handling well over 200 phone calls.

“These have varied from people asking if they are entitled to vote to others wanting advice on how the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system works.

“We have had to issue new papers to people who have mislaid theirs, including one person who found snails had got into their mailbox and nibbled holes in the paper!

“In total, we have processed 300 special votes, covering people who for example weren’t enrolled at the time papers went out.”

Ballot boxes can be found at all the libraries throughout the Kāpiti district.

ENDS

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