September 18, 2017
Election staff shake-up needed
Labour's Hauraki Waikato candidate Nanaia Mahuta has similar concerns about the Electoral Commission to those that have sparked a formal complaint.
Massey University Maori politics lecturer Veronica Tawhai has lodged a formal complaint after hearing from Maori electors who faced obstacles because of the attitudes or ignorance of poll workers.
These included people being told they were unregistered because polling booth staff don’t know to check the Maori roll, being given wrong advice or the wrong voting form, or being told they can’t vote for a Maori party if they are not on the Maori roll.
Ms Mahuta says the treatment of Maori voters is likely to be a big part of the regular post-election review of the commission.
"The Electoral Commission will have to do more to ensure the people employed to run the polling booths during the election period are not only well informed of the rules but things like pronouncing the names of our people properly and ensure we have Maori employed to do the task in out polling booths because it's not good enough, not in this day and age," she says.
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