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Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

Local Elections 2022August 24, 2022

Why do so few people vote in local elections?

Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

Voter turnout for local body elections is low across the board – but it’s far lower in some regions and demographics than others. Emma Vitz looks to the data for reasons why.

A few weeks ago, an envelope from the Electoral Commission appeared under the door of my office. Orange Guy had found me, and he had demands.

Local elections are a funny thing. In theory, it’s great that we have a way to influence the appointment of local representatives. In practice, turnout is low, and those who do vote are often doing so based on scant information and an underlying sense of confusion as to who and what they’re actually voting for. Heading into the 2022 local elections, I decided to look into who votes, who doesn’t, and why.

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In the 2019 local body elections, overall voter turnout sat at 42.2% across the country. This varied a lot by region, with some remote areas like Westland and the Chatham Islands reaching over 65% turnout, while Auckland scraped in at just over 35%.

There is a clear relationship between the size of the population and the turnout for local body elections. Auckland, our largest council, had the second lowest turnout in the country, and Christchurch, Wellington and Hamilton didn’t fare much better. Meanwhile, regions with smaller populations like the Kaikōura and Mackenzie districts saw a turnout of over 60%.

Research by Local Government NZ suggests people are less likely to vote in local body elections than central government elections because they don’t perceive them to be as important. This may be because local governments raise less taxes, provide fewer services and generally have less power and influence over people's lives. With that in mind, why do we see such a gap in turnout between large cities and smaller regional areas?

Home ownership

The only form of tax raised by local government in New Zealand is property tax, more commonly known as rates. If being a homeowner and having to pay rates to the council makes people more conscious of local governments' influence in their lives, they might be more likely to vote.

Home ownership is more common in smaller regions than in large cities – could this help explain the gap in turnout?

There does seem to be a relationship between home ownership and voter turnout in local elections. In Auckland, 33.9% of people owned their home in 2018, and voter turnout was 35.2% in the 2019 local election. Christchurch City sat at around 41% for both home ownership and voter turnout. Meanwhile, smaller regions like the Carterton and Buller Districts had home ownership rates of over 55% and turnout of just over 58%.

Age

Larger cities also tend to have younger populations, and younger people are less likely to vote. In 2016, those aged 18-24 were about half as likely to vote in local elections as those who were over 65. This might be because of a lack of interest in local politics, or because young people are more likely to be moving around for work and study, and don’t see the point of voting for a local government in an area they don’t plan on staying in.

In 2022, 68.4% of 18-24 year olds were enrolled to vote by the end of July, compared to over 98% of those aged 70 or older, so this trend looks set to continue.

Familiarity with the candidates

Perhaps most obviously, it’s harder to actually know your candidates in bigger cities. The most common reason given for not voting in the 2016 LGNZ post election survey was “I don’t know enough about the candidates”.

It makes sense that this would be more common in large cities, where local government represents hundreds of thousands of people. In a smaller region of several thousand people, you're more likely to have a personal connection with the people standing for local government.

I recently tweeted that voting in local elections is like getting a haircut, in that I’m being asked to make a decision that I would rather outsource to an informed external party. It feels like a chore. But for better or worse, that’s not how this works. It’s on us to do the research to make sure we don’t walk away looking silly.

Keep going!
At the 2019 local elections, 235 people won seats unopposed. Image: Tina Tiller
At the 2019 local elections, 235 people won seats unopposed. Image: Tina Tiller

Local Elections 2022August 22, 2022

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At the 2019 local elections, 235 people won seats unopposed. Image: Tina Tiller
At the 2019 local elections, 235 people won seats unopposed. Image: Tina Tiller

One in five elections are uncontested, while one man is running in eight different contests, including six mayoralties. 

With nominations closed, around 20% of the local body elections around the country are uncontested, meaning that the number of seats available is the same or more than the number of candidates. Across those elections, 20% will be declared the winners automatically. In 20 elections there are insufficient candidates to fill the available seats, leaving 14 unfilled. 

Across a total of 583 elections around New Zealand, 474 are contested and 119 uncontested. Seven people are running in a mayoral race alone, with uncontested elections for the mayors of Hurunui District Council, Central Otago District Council, Kawerau District Council, Central Hawke’s Bay District Council, Hauraki District Council, Hastings District Council and Stratford District Council

The data, which excludes elections to licensing and community trusts, was compiled by Policy.nz, the candidate comparison tool which will launch soon with The Spinoff. 

The total number of elections has risen by 30 from 553 (excluding DHBs) in 2019. This is primarily due to the addition of new wards, subdivisions or constituencies. In 2022 there are 33 Māori wards across councils and 11 Māori constituencies across regional councils, up from one and five respectively in 2019.

A total of 3,119 people are standing in the local elections, a drop from 3,246 in 2019 (not including DHB contests). With 1610 seats across the elections, the mean average of people standing per seat available is a whisker of two, in keeping with recent years. That low level of competition in so many races presents “a real problem” for local democracy, said Julienne Molineaux, a local elections expert and senior lecturer at AUT. Uncontested elections mean candidates “are not put under any scrutiny by the electorate … The public does not have the opportunity to reject anyone, and, on the flipside, the winning candidates lack the legitimacy that comes from being voted into power by the public,” Molineaux said.

The man standing in eight elections

There are 562 people standing in more than one election. Most of those have entered two races, with 27 having a run in three. 

Then there’s Richard Osmaston, who is standing in eight elections. The St Arnaud farmer is the leader of the NZ Money Free Party (not currently registered). He told Stuff: “The fact that we use money as our basic operating system means that everyone is continuously competing, continuously having to grow, and continuously having to focus on getting money, rather than what’s actually important.” 

Eight-race runner Richard Osmaston

He is standing to be mayor of Marlborough District, Buller District, Grey District, Nelson City, Tasman District and Westland District, as well as for council in Grey District and Tasman District.

Osmaston, who has made several unsuccessful bids for mayoralties in recent elections, told the Westport News that were he to win more than one, he’d “get a helicopter”. 

The uncontesteds

Southland District has the unenviable record of most uncontested elections, with seven. (Southland also had a hard time finding people to run in 2019 – continuing a trend. Hastings is close behind – or ahead, perhaps – with six elections uncontested. 

Southland and Waikato councils each have three more seats than candidates.

Community boards are the most affected by uncontested elections, with 51 – slightly over a quarter of the total – falling into that category. 

There are 35 district council and 13 regional council elections that are contested. Palmerston North is the only city council with an uncontested election.

Māori wards

Fourteen of 45 – just under one third – of Māori wards and constituencies are uncontested, but overall the competition for seats is greater, with an average of 2.15 candidates per seat, according to Local Government NZ.

“In the past, many Māori have felt like local government isn’t a place for them because they couldn’t see themselves represented around the council tables,” said Bonita Bigham, chair of the LGNZ group of Māori in local government, in a statement. “It’s abundantly clear that the introduction of Māori wards has empowered more Māori to stand.”


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