Electoral Commission : Local Elections October 8th 2016 New Zealand

Organization : Electoral Commission
Facility : Local Elections
Country : New Zealand

Local Elections : www.elections.org.nz/events/2016-local-elections-0/get-ready-vote-2016-local-elections
Website : http://www.elections.org.nz/

Local Elections :

** You need to be enrolled to vote in the 2016 Local Elections.
** Local elections are held once every three years.

Related : Electoral Commission New Zealand Enrol Online to Vote : www.electionin.org/431.html

** The next local elections will be held by postal vote in September and October this year.
** The elections are for city and district councils, regional councils and District Health Boards.
** In some parts of New Zealand, elections will also be held for local and community boards, licensing trusts and some other organisations.
** The Electoral Commission does not run these elections but is responsible for getting as many people as possible enrolled in time to vote.
** Everyone correctly enrolled by Friday 12 August 2016 will get their voting papers for the 2016 local elections sent to them in the mail.
** From Monday 27 June, everyone currently on the roll will be sent an enrolment update pack in the mail.
** All you need to do is check that your details are right. If they are correct, you don’t need to do anything more.
** If anything needs updating, make the changes and send them back to us immediately.
** If you don’t get a pack by Monday 4 July you are not correctly enrolled to vote, and you need to enrol.
** If you’re not enrolled by Friday 12 August you won’t get your voting papers sent to you in the mail.
** If you enrol after this date, you will have to request special voting papers from your local council electoral officer.

Key dates for local authority elections 2016 :
27 June 2016 – Electoral Commission enrolment campaign starts.
15 July 2016 Nominations open for candidates. Nominations have to be sent to the electoral officer for the council, district health board or licensing trust. Rolls open for inspection at council offices and other sites locally.

12 August 2016 – Nominations close at 12 noon. Rolls close. After this date, anyone who is entitled to vote and who is not enrolled as an elector, or whose details are incorrectly recorded on the roll, will have to cast a ‘special vote’.

17 August 2016 – Election date and candidates’ names publicised by electoral officers.
16-21 September 2016 Voting documents delivered to households. Electors can post the documents back to electoral officers as soon as they have voted.

8 October 2016 – Polling day — The voting documents must be at the council before voting closes at 12 noon. Preliminary results (i.e. once all ‘ordinary’ votes are counted) will be available as soon as possible afterwards.
13-19 October 2016 (or as soon as practicable) Official results (including all valid ordinary and special votes) declared.

How do electors find information about candidates? :
** Candidates will generally promote themselves from the time their nominations are confirmed until the end of the election period.
** Often they will use newspaper or radio advertising, billboards and leaflets delivered to mail boxes.
** Some may use the internet – a new website.
** Candidates will also attend public meetings where they can present their views and answer questions from electors.
** The local news media will normally run stories about candidates and their campaigns during the elections.
** Candidates may also provide a ‘candidate profile statement’ to the electoral officer with their nomination, which the electoral officer has to include with the voting documents posted to electors.
** This information might also be on the local council’s website.

How can electors vote if they are not on the roll? :
** Electors have until mid-August of the election year to get on the roll before the rolls close for the local elections.
** After that date, if an eligible elector is not on the roll, or their roll details are wrong, they may cast a special vote.
** If their name is not on the roll they must apply to enrol before voting.
** They may also cast a special vote if their voting papers are lost or damaged, or if they can satisfy the electoral officer that it would be too difficult to cast an ordinary vote.
** Anyone wanting to cast a special vote must contact the electoral officer by the day before polling day at the latest.

When will election results be available? :
** Votes are processed, but not counted, as they come in.
** The announcement of the preliminary results will depend on the flow of the returned voting documents to electoral officers.
** Electoral officers have the discretion to announce progress results (i.e. votes counted to date), and some do so very soon after midday on polling day (Saturday 8 October 2016) for FPP.
** This tends to happen more in larger areas, where there are many votes to count.
** The preliminary results (i.e. the count of all ordinary votes, and validated special votes) for smaller councils using FPP might be available within a few hours of the close of voting on polling day.
** Under FPP, candidates’ vote tallies increase progressively as more and more votes are counted.
** It is possible to predict whether the uncounted votes could alter the outcome after a progress result, based on the margins between the candidates and how many votes there are left to count.
** However, the nature of STV voting means that a very few votes can alter the result of an election by changing the order in which candidates are excluded and their votes transferred.
** As a result, it is less clear how a relatively small number of votes will affect the final result under STV.
** This is why progress results are generally not made in STV elections.
** The Society of Local Government Managers’ electoral working party has recommended that electoral officers release preliminary results (as distinct from progress results) for STV elections as soon as practicable.
** If electoral officers cannot release a preliminary result by midday on Sunday 9 October, because they have not received all the votes to process and put through the calculator for an announcement by that time, then they should consider releasing progress results sometime after midday on Sunday.