KEY POINTS:
The run-up to next month's local body elections has seen a number of blunders around the country, mainly involving ballot papers.
In Auckland up to 2000 people in the Eden-Albert ward received two copies of their voting forms.
Auckland City Council electorate officer Dale Ofsoske said that after
printing all 46,000 copies of the voting forms and candidate directories for the ward, DataMail, the company responsible for printing and distributing election forms throughout New Zealand, spotted that the picture of an Auckland District Health Board candidate was smudged.
It was deemed a disadvantage to the candidate and a reprint was ordered, which DataMail agreed to pay for.
"I said to DataMail, 'Make sure all the old ones, all the rejects, are removed and destroyed'," Mr Ofsoske said.
"They even took me around to the plant and showed me nine cages of these rejected mailers.
"So I was satisfied ... until Saturday morning when I got a call from someone saying, 'Why have I got two?"'
However, there was no need to panic as the system allowed only one vote from each voter ID number, said Mr Ofsoske.
Voting papers for the Masterton District Council's 13,187 urban voters (of a total 17,032) carried instructions to vote for up to seven candidates. In fact, a vote for more than four would render the ballot paper invalid.
Masterton electoral officer Warwick Lampp said a "proofing error" led to the misinformation. Voters who send invalid forms can get in touch with the council to make a "special vote" with four selections.
In Carterton, voters could be forgiven for feeling out of touch with their local officials.
They were sent the wrong candidate directory, one for Central Otago.
Carterton District Council electoral officer Milan Hautler said DataMail was not sure how the error had occurred.
The company hoped to have a more relevant directory in the mail yesterday.
Further south, Waimakariri District Council is checking if it can go ahead with elections after voting papers were printed with candidates' names in the wrong order.
Council policy, like most local bodies, is to run candidates' lists in random order to make it fairer.
But a printing mistake meant the papers that were delivered at the weekend went out with candidate lists for the mayoralty, ward and community board elections in alphabetical order, the Press newspaper reported.
Candidate lists for the district health board and regional council Environment Canterbury elections were correctly printed in random order.
Electoral officer Gary Saunders said he would seek legal advice.
"I have had a look at the legislation myself and I don't think that this impacts to the extent of making the election null and void, but I'm going to look at that."
- NZPA
