Auckland Council votes to ditch 'broken' postal voting despite 'eye-watering' cost

Auckland Council has voted to ditch postal voting and switch to a booth voting system that will cost ratepayers tens of millions of dollars.

The Governing Body made the decision today after the council had been rocked by a series of voter fraud scandals that have undermined public confidence in democracy.

Mayor Wayne Brown clashed with a local board chair after an impassioned plea to abandon postal voting to restore integrity to the system.

Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board chairman Apulu Reece Autagavaia said irregularities uncovered in the 2025 Papatoetoe subdivision election had “permeated and infected” the result.

“Person’s unknown” had stolen people’s ballot papers, robbing them of their democratic right to vote.

This had damaged confidence in the electoral process and undermined efforts to lift dire voter turnout figures, Autagavaia said.

“The system is broken. For too many, there is no trust in it.”

Apulu Reece Autagavaia.

Autagavaia was critical of council officials and the Election Services returning officer for not identifying the irregularities.

It had taken investigations by members of the public, who later launched court proceedings, to expose widespread fraudulent voting.

However, Mayor Wayne Brown warned of huge costs of switching to in-person booth voting – estimated at up to $40 million compared to $16m for postal voting.

He said that despite a judge voiding the Papatoetoe subdivision election result and ordering a re-election, just one elected member had lost their seat.

Brown pointed out that many Auckland residents were suffering from high living costs and did not need further bills associated with an election.

“We’re talking about possibly spending 2% of our rates just to solve a couple of postal things.”

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown.

Autagavaia fired back that people in his community no longer trusted the electoral system. He believed the problems identified in Papatoetoe were more widespread.

“I think a lot of it’s going under the radar. I think there’s other stuff happening in the city that hasn’t been found.

“The integrity of the system and ensuring people have confidence in the system – that’s the price of democracy.”

Recent claims of vote rigging in the Manurewa election were also raised by councillors.

“I don’t want to see pictures ever again of people holding hundreds of ballot papers in their hand,” Richard Hills said.

“That just undermines the whole process.”

He said shoring up the voting system would help lift voter turnout and suggested a targeted rate to cover additional costs.

Julie Fairey said increased public confidence was “worth the cost”.

A whistleblower has sent photos to the Serious Fraud Office and Auckland Council that show allegedly stolen ballot papers for the 2025 Manurewa Local Board election.

“We’ve had a real challenge to integrity at the last election – people feeling that even if they do vote it might not count because there might be some fraud.”

This was a “significant turn off” for voters and she supported changing the system.

Councillor Lotu Fuli said the extra costs were “eye watering”. However, the status quo was akin to “rewarding the fraudsters and wrong-doers”, she said.

“This is about protecting our democracy. That’s the bottom line.

“This isn’t isolated to South Auckland. We’ve been hearing about this going on for decades. But what happened in Papatoetoe crystalised those long-held concerns.”

Councillor Andy Baker opposed the changes, which he described as “gambling” with ratepayer money.

“We are taking at least a $9m punt on a change in public behaviour.”

An amendment was put forward directing staff to lower the cost of a 10-day booth voting process to $20m and report back to council in December.

Brown said this would amount to $10 for every “man, woman and child”, which he warned would be a hard sell to Auckland ratepayers.

The amendment was passed 13 votes to three with Brown, Baker and Greg Sayers voting against it.

Local Government New Zealand chair Fran Wilde said there were “real and urgent problems” with postal voting, which was losing public trust.

She called on the Government to deliver a nationwide, in-person voting system administered and promoted by the Electoral Commission.

“LGNZ is calling on all parties to support local elections being run in the same way as general elections – and to prioritise this change in the next term of Parliament.

“Councils technically can choose to switch individually to booth voting, like Auckland Council has. However, it would be much more cost-effective and improve voter turnout if elections were run centrally by the Electoral Commission rather than by each individual council.”