Voters yet to tune in, turn on

With little more than a week before voting closes, voter apathy appears to have a massive majority in New Plymouth’s local government election.

As of yesterday, just 6% of voters, or 3676 of the 61,278 eligible, had voted, with the campaign on course to attract even less than the record low of 45% who bothered to have their say in 2019.

Despite New Plymouth’s election featuring many candidates across several wards, and a mayoral race being contested by eight candidates, the district’s voter numbers fall well below Stratford’s 12% and South Taranaki’s 12.7%, even though those elections have all but been decided in the majority of their wards.

However, New Plymouth voter apathy matched many districts around New Zealand, with the likes of Wellington recording just a 5% turnout to date and Auckland around 8%, with the countdown to polls closing at midday on Saturday, October 8, looming.

The slow uptake of voters casting their choices in New Plymouth comes despite candidate meetings being packed, including last week’s Taranaki Daily News mayoral debate in the district council chambers, when people were turned away and more than 350 tuned in to the live stream on Stuff.

The low turnout has a number of New Plymouth candidates concerned and calling for change in the way the triennial postal voting over a three-week period takes place.

‘‘I think a national voting day, as occurs in the general election, would lift participation and interest,’’ incumbent New Plymouth mayor Neil Holdom, who is standing again, said.

‘‘I also think online voting, while complicated, would also make it easier for people to vote and likely materially lift participation rates, particularly with people under 40.’’

New Plymouth District Council is running a $30,000 campaign, including internet and billboards, to encourage people to stand for election, know the candidates and vote.

But councillor and mayoral candidate Dinnie Moeahu believed council had not been proactive enough.

‘‘There has been a real missed opportunity by council who could’ve developed educational videos on how the new voting system (Single Transferable Vote) works and how you could vote,’’ he said.

‘‘I was surprised that wasn’t part of the marketing strategy, so I did my own educational video.’’

Moeahu, who topped the exit poll at last Friday’s debate, said a lot of feedback he received centred on voters simply not knowing who to vote for, and it was simply not a priority for them.

Fellow mayoral candidate Sam Bennett said the low turnout so far was a real concern. He believed it was now up to the candidates to get out and encourage people to vote.

First-time council candidate Bali Haque believed voter numbers would rise significantly in the final week but admitted the desperately low figures to date were a concern. ‘‘People don’t think local government impacts on their lives, so they don’t have skin in the game,’’ he said.

‘‘We need to do better to explain what local government does do and demonstrate that local government can influence and have impacts on a lot more than most people think.’’

Haque also believed more had to be done to attract ‘‘higher calibre’’ candidates and suggested increasing remuneration and reducing the workload.

Haque said he had had received feedback that voters did not know enough about candidates, two-minute slots at meet the candidate meetings were not fit for purpose, and that voters did not know where to take their voting papers.