In response to the concerns you have raised, we note we have not published any
content that has promoted how voters should vote in referendums on the Māori wards
and constituencies being held as part of the local elections.
Our websites link to a number of different external websites, including some websites
containing political content, for example, the Register of Political Parties includes links
to party websites. In our view this does not compromise the impartiality and neutrality
of the Commission.
Prior to Cameron Luxton’s post on X on Thursday 2 October, the Commission received
one complaint on 27 August about the link from vote.nz to About Māori wards and
constituencies - Vote 25 | Pōti 25.
In response to that complaint, we explained that to help voters who may come to us to
seek information about the local elections, we provided links to votelocal.co.nz, a
website maintained by Local Government New Zealand and Taituarā - Local
Government Professionals Aotearoa. This website includes detailed information about
the local elections and is a single site where electors can find contact information for
every council’s electoral officer and information on all of the councils that are holding
polls on Māori wards.
We encouraged the complainant, if they had concerns about the content provided by
votelocal.co.nz, to contact the administrators of that website.
Erring on the side of caution, following the second complaint made by Cameron Luxton
last week, we have removed the specific link that was complained about. We have also
removed links to the vote local and LGNZ websites from the page content of vote.nz and
elections.nz.
I have looked into the way the original complaint was handled and have considered the
public interest in finding accessible information on local elections. I am satisfied that
there was no intent to influence the debate on Māori wards.
To assist voters we have published a list of local councils and their electoral officer
contact details. This way electors can find this information if they come to the vote.nz
website, and our enquiries and community teams can also point voters to their local
council to, for example, arrange special votes.
Yours sincerely
Karl Le Quesne
Chief Electoral Officer
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