Rotorua fell short in an ambitious bid for a 50% voter turnout in this month’s local elections.
It was one of the 21 city or district councils to suffer a turnout drop of 1 percentage point or more, but stayed above the national average and increased Māori ward votes.
Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) data placed Rotorua’s 2025 local election return at 43.27% of eligible voters.
That was down on Department of Internal Affairs figures of 47.9% in 2022 and 46.4% in 2019.
Rotorua’s turnout ranked among the lower end of district or city councils, sitting 51st of the 66 that took part in October’s election.
Council chief executive Andrew Moraes had previously set an ambitious turnout target of 50%.
That was always a tough ask. The bump in 2022 was largely credited to the contest for a new mayor, following Steve Chadwick’s decision to stand down after nine years.
Tania Tapsell won the role, and held it in this year’s contest by a significant margin.
An early release of the pre-election report and just under $35,000 worth of advertising and marketing could not get Rotorua to that ambitious threshold.
Despite the tally coming up short, Moraes remained positive about the turnout.
“While we didn’t achieve our ambitious goal of increasing voter turnout despite our best efforts, turnout in our district was 43.27%, 21,796 votes,” he said, pointing out this was above the national average of 39.4%.
Moraes said it was “encouraging” that participation in the Māori ward had increased.
According to Election NZ figures, 31.49% of those eligible voted in the Māori ward in 2022, compared to 37.56% in 2025.
Trevor Maxwell became New Zealand’s longest-serving councillor after re-election to the ward, joined by newcomer Te Rika Temara-Benfell and former councillor Merepeka Raukawa-Tait.
Rotorua voted to keep its Māori ward, with 11,363 votes in favour compared to 8,507 against. Just over 1900 voters left the option blank on voting papers.
Nationwide, Rotorua was in the minority of 21 district or city councils where turnout fell, with 33 enjoying a bounce of 1 percentage point or more compared to three years ago.
Nationwide, there was only a slight decrease in voter turnout, largely driven by significant drops in big centres such as Auckland and Christchurch.
Local Government NZ reported a national spike in voting 10 days before election day, followed by a lull until the final day, when almost 15% of votes were cast.
This was boosted by more than 1500 orange drop-off bins nationwide, including 20 in Rotorua.
In Rotorua, 8.75% of total votes were cast on election day, according to Electionz.com.
LGNZ interim chief executive Scott Necklen said the success of in-person options supported moving away from postal voting to a polling booth-style system in the future.
In July, LGNZ recommended transitioning to in-person voting by 2028, expanding orange bins and drive-through drop-offs, and making overseas electronic voting and reissuing papers easier – as well as passing election responsibilities to the Electoral Commission.
“It’s vital we do whatever it takes to lift voter turnout and restore confidence in local democracy,” said Necklen, as “council decisions impact all parts of our lives.”
Rotorua elected Tania Tapsell as mayor with roughly 56.8% of the vote.
She will be joined by re-elected councillors Karen Barker, Gregg Brown, Sandra Kai Fong, Robert Lee, Maxwell, Don Paterson and Fisher Wang, the returning Raukawa-Tait and newcomers Ben Sandford and Temara-Benfell.
It is expected the councillors will be sworn in at a meeting on October 29.
Mathew Nash is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. He has previously written for SunLive, been a regular contributor to RNZ and was a football reporter in the UK for eight years.
- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.