A judge has voided a local council election in Auckland that was swept by four Indian candidates and ordered a by-election after determining there had been “fraudulent” voting activity.
Judge Richard McIlraith on Tuesday overturned the October result for the Papatoetoe subdivision of the Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board void, ruling that voter fraud had “permeated or infected the election”.
The Manukau District Court heard last week that there had been widespread theft of voting papers, and that 79 had been identified as being cast without the rightful voter’s knowledge, The Post reported.
Judge McIlraith said there had been an “identifiable trend in favour of POAT [Papatoetoe Otara Action Team] candidates”, who were named in the ruling as Paramjeet Singh, Sandeep Saini, Kushma Nair and Kunal Bhalla.
The POAT team, who were all first-time candidates, won all four seats in Papatoetoe, which was the only Otara-Papatoetoe subdivision to record a significant rise in turnout, increasing by 7% while most areas of Auckland saw turnout fall.
Judge McIlraith said the four POAT candidates were notified of the court case but declined to participate, and in his ruling also raised concerns about the postal ballot system, and the possibility the irregularities identified were just the “tip of the iceberg”, RNZ reported.
“I am seriously concerned that the extent of votes being cast in this election by people other than for whom the voting papers were intended is much greater than the level known,” he wrote.
“The irregularity that has occurred here highlights a significant fragility in the postal voting system that I infer has been a concern held by many for some time but has not previously crystallised.”
The court case came after former Local Board member Vi Hausia filed a petition claiming to have received reports from residents that their voting papers had been stolen and submitted without their consent.
Mr Hausia said the judge had made a “strong ruling in favour of our democracy and our electoral integrity”, but said it raised questions about the use of postal votes.
“The postal ballot system is one of the main key drivers as to why I believe people saw an opportunity to undermine our local government democracy,” he said.
“I hope that these events and the judge’s ruling will influence governing body members and ministers to strengthen our democracy and move away from posted ballot voting.”
New voting papers will be sent out on March 9 next year and the election will be declared complete on April 9.
Header image: The POAT candidates campaigning in September (Facebook).
