When a candidate noticed “irregularities” in a South Auckland local body election, he challenged the result in court.
The electoral officer from the company contracted to run the election opposed the petition in the district court, even as evidence emerged that some votes had been cast by someone other than the named elector.
The Papatoetoe subdivision result was later voided, with the court finding irregularities that materially affected the outcome. Police inquiries are continuing, but no suspect has been publicly identified.
Labour candidate Vi Hausia was flying economy last year when he saw the election results on his phone. He’d just lost his seat in the Papatoetoe local election.
He was trounced.
“I was gutted,” said Hausia.
He looked at the results and something seemed off. As a full-time engineer, Hausia works with data, and the turnout didn’t add up.
Hausia was the highest polling unsuccessful candidate. While his vote rose slightly from 2022, he didn’t come close to winning.
The winning candidates all received 1200 to 2000 more votes than he did.
“The numbers didn’t really, in my view, look representative of the feeling on the ground.”
He was supposed to be on holiday in India, trying to get away from the stress of the election.
Instead, he was glued to his phone, wondering what went wrong.
That gut feeling and this fact-finding mission ended up with Hausia in front of a district court judge alleging misuse of voting papers and other irregularities in the election.
Judge Richard McIlraith found that irregularities materially affected the election result for the Papatoetoe subdivision of the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board. The court did not implicate any candidate, saying the misuse of voting papers was by persons unknown. Its decision was later upheld by a High Court judge.
Hausia won in court. But “significant fragility” in the postal voting system had been exposed.
The court ordered a rerun of the election, which closed at midday today, with final results to be declared tomorrow.
In this afternoon’s provisional results, Hausia received 2788 votes – the most of any candidate, and about 300 votes more than the next person.
The best information available has come from the documents presented to the district court, which ultimately found “unknown persons” had obtained other electors’ voting papers and returned votes on behalf of another elector – and inferred this was more widespread than just the examples found.
The first instance that raised eyebrows was how many people voted in the election. Voter turnout in every local board in Auckland dropped. Papatoetoe was the only subdivision which increased by a rate of 7.5%.
Then there were the number of people who didn’t receive voting papers. Hausia reached out to members of the community and built a list of people who didn’t get their papers. He asked each of these people if they voted in the election.
Some didn’t because they never got their papers.
Some didn’t get papers but still cast a special vote in person.
That’s how Hausia found the anomalies.
He requested the electoral roll results from Election Services and cross-checked each of the residents who said they did not receive their voting papers.
Dozens of people he tracked down told Hausia they did not vote. But on the election results they were listed as “already voted”.
It was the special votes that were the most illustrative.
These people signed declarations saying they did not receive their voting papers.
But on the official results, it said they had voted by mail.
The difference is that these people then cast a special vote in person, voting for a different candidate than the one on their voting record.
This was the smoking gun. One fraudulent vote. One true vote. Two different candidates.
When Hausia took the petition to the district court, Election Services’ chief electoral officer and managing director, Dale Ofsoske, opposed it on advice from his lawyers.
Ofsoske, who has been running elections now for 40 years, told the Herald this was the most irregularities he’d ever heard of.
A candidate or a group of 10 electors can challenge an election. But why is it up to citizens to protect the system from fraud?
“Well, basically the answer is history,” said University of Otago law professor Andrew Geddis.
“The idea that was carried over from the United Kingdom is that the electorate is meant to almost self-monitor.
“So it’s up to candidates or concerned voters to challenge the results of an election, and we’ve just had that carried over.”
Asked about the fraud, Ofsoske said they had their “suspicions”, which was why they pulled 79 votes that were “irregularly” cast.
Ofsoske had the ability to launch an inquiry into the election results but did not, although he did file a complaint of alleged electoral fraud with the police.
Geddis said he probably would have advised Ofsoske against an inquiry.
The official would have to prove that fraudulent voting occurred that affected the result of the election. Not just that there was fraud, but that the fraud actually swayed the result.
Geddis suspects the advice Ososke got was, yes, there have been “irregularities”, but not enough to sway the election.
“Which, as we have seen, turned out to be wrong,” said Geddis, referencing the court ruling.
But while the courts said there was fraud, there are many unknowns.
No one was seen stealing letters containing ballot papers. No candidate has been charged.
Police inquiries are continuing, and no suspect has been publicly identified or any charge announced.
Geddis said the only real option that remains is in-person voting, which is expensive but secure.
There is talk of online voting, but the consensus among IT security, policy advisers and the Government Communications Security Bureau is that its weaknesses outweigh its benefits at present.
All computer systems contain exploitable flaws that hackers could exploit, or they would require such stringent voter authentication that this would create a barrier to voting itself – especially for those who are not tech savvy.
However, Hausia says, the court’s decision shows “postal ballot voting’s time needs to end”.
“It was a huge effort to navigate through the legal system,” said Hausia.
“I’m not a lawyer – I’m an engineer by trade.
“What happened in Papatoetoe has solidified that. I will continue to advocate to our governing body and to central Government to make postal ballot voting history, where it belongs.”