The ratepayer franchise, which lets some property owners cast local election votes in more than one area, has recently come under scrutiny. But how often might contests for mayor in 2019 have hinged on those extra votes, asks Emma Vitz. 

In 2019, there were 6,066 ratepayers who voted for mayors in areas where they don’t live. This is thanks to the ratepayer roll, which allows ratepayers who own property in a local government jurisdiction in which they’re non-resident to vote in elections in that area, while still voting in the area in which they reside. 

For some people, this is fundamentally undemocratic and represents a flagrant example of the advantages landlords in New Zealand have over those who rent or only own a single property. In this vein, Renters United has launched a petition to abolish the ratepayer roll. Others, however, believe that anyone paying a tax should have a say in how that tax is spent. 

With these competing points of view in mind, I wanted to find out – have ratepayers actually had enough sway to decide local government elections? 

Ratepayer turnout is more than twice as high as residential turnout in local elections. In 2019, 87.7% of eligible ratepayers voted in the mayoral elections, compared to 40.6% of residential electors. However, the absolute number of ratepayer electors is tiny, with 6,915 ratepayers being eligible to vote in contested mayoral elections in 2019, compared to over 3 million residential electors. 

Only three of the 61 contested 2019 mayoral elections could have been decided by the number of ratepayers that voted. The first was Kaikōura District Council, which had 25 ratepayers vote in an election that had a margin of 12 votes between the two frontrunners. The second was Wellington City’s hotly contested mayoral election, in which 196 ratepayers voted and the margin between Justin Lester and Andy Foster was a mere 62 votes. Finally, in the Kāpiti Coast, the 513 ratepayers who voted in that election could have, in theory at least, have swayed that result, assuming almost all of them voted the same way. 

There are, of course, a number of elections down the ballot where results might have been affected. But when it comes to the mayoralty, outside of these three elections, the number of ratepayer votes for mayor made up 5% of the gap between the two most popular candidates, on average. 

In Auckland, where Phil Goff raked in just under 100,000 more votes than John Tamihere in 2019, 351 ratepayers cast votes in the mayoral election. In Christchurch City, where 192 ratepayers voted, there was a gap of just over 18,000 votes between the two most popular candidates.

The Thames-Coromandel District has been flagged as having a particularly high number of non-residential voters, but even here, the 930 ratepayers who voted could not have closed the gap of over 3,000 votes between the two frontrunners. 

I don’t personally have firm opinions on whether the ratepayer roll should exist or not, and the arguments on points of principle are well worth debate. But for those seeking to make councils more representative, removing the ratepayer roll is no silver bullet – a greater impact might be achieved by working to lift turnout levels among residents.

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