Almost one in four eligible voters in the local body elections could not name their sitting mayor when asked in a Herald-DigiPoll survey.
More than half did not know the name of a council member representing their ward.
The poll of 800 people nationwide, taken between September 6 and 11, found 78
per cent intended to vote in the elections, to be held by mail over the next three weeks. Ballot papers will be sent out tomorrow.
When asked if they could name the mayor of their city or district, 76 per cent said they could and 23 per cent could not. When it came to naming a ward representative, 56 per cent could not.
Most rural dwellers (53 per cent) could name a ward member but only 39 per cent of city people could do so.
Women were more confident than men that they knew who held the leading positions on their local council, and voters aged over 40 were more certain than those under 40.
Rural people were more likely to know the names of their representatives than urban voters, though Aucklanders scored higher than the rest of the country.
The election hoardings cluttering the landscape at present may not be worth the candidates' expense, going by responses to the poll.
When asked for their main source of voting information, only 7 per cent of those polled named candidates' street signs.
Nearly 70 per cent of the survey said they read material that candidates put out. But only 11 per cent regarded it as their main source of information, while newspaper reports were named by 60 per cent overall.
* Tomorrow the Herald will publish a four-page elections special.
Feature: Local body elections 2001
www.localgovt.co.nz
