App aims to help New Plymouth voters
A former district councillor is spending thousands of dollars to help voters get a better understanding of candidates in the upcoming local body elections.
Len Houwers, who resigned a little more than a year after he was elected to the New Plymouth District Council (NPDC) in 2013, has bought the rights to use a recently developed app which allows users to read candidate biographies and ask them questions directly online.
He said he was motivated to use and localise the app in New Plymouth out of frustration, and a desire to increase candidate knowledge and lift voter turnout, which has fallen below 50% in recent elections.
‘‘There is no meaningful information that can help us decide who actually are the best candidates to be elected on to council,’’ Houwers said.
‘‘This is a recurring message from people I meet who are interested in the election – billboards and slogans tell them nothing, and public meetings have to be so tightly structured that all that they can do is establish an emotional connection with a candidate.’’
All the mayoral candidates, as well as council hopefuls throughout each ward, have been contacted and invited to add additional information to the bios they supplied with their nomination.
‘‘I really think that this app is part of a solution to get people back into engaging with local body politics,’’ Houwers said.
A number of candidates have already engaged with the app,
The Taranaki Daily News mayoral candidate debate is on Friday, September 23 at the New Plymouth District Council chambers. Doors open 10am, debate starts 10.30am.
with only two, Sam Bennett and Harry Duynhoven, saying they would not get involved.
Bennett told Houwers he ‘‘respectfully’’ declined because he would be sharing information through established media platforms that he knew and trusted.
Houwers said he hoped the council would get behind the idea to lift voter turnout, as the Rotorua Lakes Council did after the app was developed in the city, but it had decided it did not need to.
Council marketing, communications and design lead Ben Kohlis said it had been planning ‘‘our election campaign’’ for months and was satisfied that its digital channels were costeffective for ratepayers.
Houwers estimated that it would cost him about $7000 to deliver the full function of the app, including technical support from its developer, which would modify questions as they were delivered from users.
Kohlis admitted that one of the main reasons voters failed to cast their ballots was a lack of knowledge about candidates. This was why the council had come up with ‘‘Know Your Candidates’’ – eight simple questions – on its digital platforms.
That doesn’t wash with Houwers, who said he believed voters should have a platform to ask what they wanted, not questions generated from inside the council itself.
Kohlis said the council was also planning to run ‘‘pop-up’’ events to make it easier for people to return their voting papers, as part of its $30,000 campaign budget – the same as at the last election.
During the last election, the council’s campaign included a blow-up poo emoji and the tagline ‘‘Give a s..t, vote today’’.
The app is free to downland at newplymouth.engageme.nz/