Kaipara District councillors at today's emergency meeting to discuss a complaint about the elections process. Photo / Susan Botting
Kaipara District Council has today in a secret vote backed a complaint letter from outgoing mayor Craig Jepson regarding claims of irregularities in the election process.
The decision was made at an emergency council meeting called by Jepson and held this morning after it was abandoned last night when it became “unruly”.
Jepson had sought council backing for an election process complaint he wanted to forward to the Department of Internal Affairs.
He told NZME the primary objective of the meeting was to investigate whether Kaipara had an “honest and above board” election.
Today’s council decision to back Jepson‘s complaint was made in a narrow 5:3 vote.
Outgoing councillor Eryn Wilson-Collins said the decision was made in spite of the senior electoral officer Dale Ofsoske and council lawyer Warren Bagma advising the intent of the election process challenge could not be achieved.
Four councillors this morning unsuccessfully fought for the decision about the complaint to be made in public.
Councillor and mayoral candidate Ash Nayyar, along with Pera Paniora, Mark Vincent and Wilson-Collins voted against the decision being made in secret.
But they were outvoted by Jepson, deputy mayor Jonathan Larsen, councillors Mike Howard, Gordon Lambeth and Rachael Williams.
The behind closed doors decision then saw a four-person majority vote with the mayor, Larsen, Lambeth and Williams supporting the council backing Jepson’s complaint.
Howard and Wilson-Collins voted against this, along with Nayyar who had left the meeting room when the public was excluded, saying what was happening couldn’t be justified.
But Nayyar returned and voted against the council supporting Jepson’s complaint.
Paniora abstained.
Ōtamatea councillor Mark Vincent had already walked out of the meeting in disgust over what was happening.
He called the meeting a farce.
The council has said little about the details of the challenge but there was an intent to try and halt the release of final election returns for Kaipara District Council expected about 4pm today.
Larsen, who was endorsed by Jepson, said the challenge centred around election processes and referred specifically to challenging the election management processes of Kaipara District Council rather than wanting to challenge the election process for the whole of the country.
The challenge is around Kaipara District Council and Northland Regional Council election processes.
Larsen said Northland Regional Council was involved because Kaipara’s electors had their say on the future of its Te Raki Māori constituency during the election process.
He said today’s election results would not change the fact that Kaipara District Council had made this challenge.
Current front runner Larsen is five votes ahead of closest rival Snow Tane, and 31 votes ahead of third placed contender Dr Jason Smith, who has been Kaipara mayor before.
He would not say whether he was going to challenge the results outcome when released this afternoon.
Mangawhai resident Helen Price, speaking from outside the meeting, said she was embarrassed about what was happening at the council.
She said democracy was unjustifiably being called into question.
There were processes that could be followed to question elections and their management, Price said, and the way that it was being done by the council may was not okay.
Fellow resident Sue Poynter believed the election process had been legitimate.
In her opinion, the events of the past 24 hours were because candidates supported by Jepson, such as Jonathan Larsen who had the mayor’s endorsement, may not be elected.
In response to criticism from community members, Larsen said people were entitled to their opinion.
The meeting this morning in Mangawhai was a continuation of last night’s that was adjourned by Jepson 25 minutes in after he said it became “unruly”.
“I thought I’m not going to put up with this process interference,” he said.
“People stood up and started shouting and wouldn’t sit down.”
Jepson last night said he had called the emergency meeting early because he didn’t want people to think he was acting from sour grapes. He was unconcerned about the final result.
“I’ve got serious concerns about how the election was run,” he said.
“If you look at the vote harvesting, if you look at the way people have operated the voting booths in the district.
“The classic one is how the Māori Party co-opted a Whangārei District Council voting booth at Whangārei Unitec [NorthTec] and they put all their signs up saying vote for the Māori ward.”
Jepson said it was “inappropriate” to tell people how to vote.
“I’m open to a process that examines in detail what’s occurred, not just in our electorate but others.
“The TMP people had very aggressive signage telling people they had to vote to retain the Māori ward. That is not how an election should be operated. It’s supposed to be impartial.”
Jepson suggested a thorough investigation into not just Kaipara’s voting system but New Zealand in general.
“So it’s not suffering from anomalies in people who have vested interests in controlling the process,” he said.
“I think we need to have a national election day for local government where everybody turns up, presents their ID and votes.
“None of this other stuff going on where votes are being harvested and people are being told how to vote. There is all sorts of nonsense going on in the background that needs to be stopped.”
Jepson also questioned the need for postal votes.
The outgoing Kaipara mayor suggested the integrity of the voting process has deteriorated since the last election.
“It’s been infiltrated by activists who have made the most of the opportunity to harvest votes and abuse the process,” he said.
“When you have entities who are busy enrolling people, and not just enrolling them, but telling them how to vote, to me that is harvesting.”
Electoral officer Dale Ofsoske, who runs the company contracted to run Kaipara’s elections, yesterday seemed to pour cold water on the rationale for the emergency meeting.
Speaking via audiovisual link at last night’s meeting, he said the vote-counting process would continue and the final result would be released late on Friday, as planned.
Jepson was unable to be reached for comment after today’s decision.
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.