Editorial: Time to move to online voting

Andrew Austin, Editor of Hawke's Bay Today.

As far as byelections go, the current process to elect a new Mayor of Hastings and another councillor on the district council has had quite a bit of community engagement.

Normally byelections slide by without many people even knowing they are on, but this one has been relatively high profile. I suppose this is because one of the city jobs up for grabs is the top one - the mayor.

However, with just three days left to vote in the Hastings mayoral and Hastings/Havelock North ward councillor by-election, only 28 per cent of eligible voters have sent their returns to the Hastings District Council. Of 55,564 people who can vote, 15,867 voting papers have been received by the council.

Voting closes at noon this Friday and it will be interesting to see how many more people vote, because from now on voting papers need to be hand delivered just to be safe.

I have been surprised how much interest there has been in the byelection, but I suppose the fact that it will be the first time in 15 years there will be a new mayor and after the Havelock North water crisis, people are expecting a lot from their new leader.

The candidates, Bayden Barber, Sandra Hazlehurst, Simon Nixon, Stuart Perry, Waitawhara Tupaea and Allister Tosh, have certainly done all they can to get their message out there.

The Hawke's Bay Today's mayoral debate certainly gave them that opportunity, with nearly 400 people attending and more than 100,000 reached via our livestreaming on our Facebook page.

But one has to wonder if there is an easy way for people to vote. I know it comes up every time there is an election, but the low turnout shows that it is time we moved to online voting.

The recent Hawke's Bay Power Consumer Trust elections proved how smooth it can be.

So what do we have to lose, let's move to online voting.