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October 02, 2023
MP concerned booths not ready for Māori voters
Peter Verschaffelt
Posted On October 2, 2023
Download AudioEarly voting starts today and Tāmaki Makaurau MP Peeni Henare says it will be a test of whether the Electoral Commission has done enough to cater for Māori voters.
He says its performance in past elections has been substandard, with many of its polling station workers seemingly unaware of how to process Māori voters.
“People would go in to cast their vote and be told ‘no, you can’t cast your vote in the Māori electorate in that booth,’ which is absolute garbage. Then we compound that with the fact of bad weather accessibility in a lot of our rural places and it’s just not good enough,” he says.
Mr Henare says because of the state of the roads in areas like Te Tairāwhiti, people should consider voting early in case of adverse weather around election day.
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