Animal Justice Auckland (AJA) is the forerunner to an Animal Justice Party, which aims to be registered in time for the 2023 general election.

AJA agrees with Ted Johnston from the New Conservative Party that allowing essentially unlimited spending for mayoral candidates is destroying democracy.

AJA Auckland Mayoral Candidate Dr Michael Morris has this to add.

“The media inevitably feature the candidates with the highest profile. The business and ratepayer associations follow suit, and invite only the high profile candidates to speak at their events. These are the candidates who can use money to shout the loudest, not necessarily the best.

There are other ways that democracy is being undermined. Chief among these is the way that postal voting disenfranchises those with precarious living situations, who may not have registered in their new address. These would mainly be the young, who move around a lot, as well as those living in institutions. True, these people can cast a special vote, but there are few places they can go to, and these are only open during working hours. This makes it difficult for those who live far from the main business districts or who have to work.

Another flaw with the postal voting is the way that anyone can help themselves to voting envelopes from letter boxes and thus have more than one vote. Again, many of those deprived of their papers will cast a special vote, thus invalidating the fraudulent vote. But many won’t. And there is no way of tracking down the fraudsters.

AJA recommends the following changes to the Auckland Council voting system to make it fair.

1. * Limit any campaigning to 3 months from the election

2. * Limit allowed spending to an amount anyone can afford

3. * Scrap the postal voting system and bring in the Electoral Commission to oversee voting.

4. * Explore online voting. If a blockchain system can be secure enough for cryptocurrency, it must be possible to adapt it to voting.

5. * Auckland Council must arrange more meet-the-candidate events, at which all candidates are invited. This means we are not dependent on business or resident groups to get our message across.

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