October 16, 2023
Tamihere eyes Māori seat recount
Te Pati Māori president John Tamihere isn’t ruling out seeking recounts because of failures by the Electoral Commission.
The party’s candidates missed out in Te Tai Tokerau and Tamaki Makaurau by fewer than 500 votes.
Mr Tamihere says there are large numbers of special votes to be counted – in part because polling places did not have enough voting forms, copies of Māori electoral rolls or staff assigned to deal with large numbers of Māori seat voters.
The combination of factors could have affected the outcome, and the commission needs to be challenged.
“We’re getting all the evidence in as we speak from our electorates, from screen shots to – we’re collecting the evidence now. It’s just not right. Even Rawiri Waititi was told, when he tried to vote in the mall in Rotorua, that he wasn’t on the roll. It took him to open up the book and go through it, and this is in Rotorua, the guy who’s supposed to be the MP for it,” Mr Tamihere says.
He says voting forms ran out at the voting stations at two of the Māori Party’s major support bases – Hone Waititi Marae and Manurewa Marae – not just on several occasions during early voting but on election day itself.