After a promising start, turnout is on the slide – but there’s still time to get out and vote, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.
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Early momentum fades as voter turnout stalls
After an encouraging start, early voting in the 2025 local elections has slowed sharply, dimming hopes of a strong turnout when polls close on Saturday. Just a week ago, Local Government New Zealand expressed optimism that this year’s turnout might beat recent years, noting that returns were running well ahead of 2022 levels. But updated figures show that momentum has largely evaporated. Wellington, which earlier in the voting period was well ahead of its 2022 pace, now sits almost level with it at 30.36%. Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin are all behind their previous returns at the same point in the election, at 21.9% (vs 26.6%), 30.57% (vs 38.30%) and 26.16% (vs 39.14%) respectively. You can see updated graphs for the major cities showing the turnout levels compared to previous years on The Spinoff here.
The same pattern is emerging in rural districts, which had seemed particularly strong a week ago: Manawatū’s turnout, which was tracking ahead of 2022 until Tuesday, has now slipped to 30.81% compared with 37.04% at this point in 2022, while Kaikōura’s 40.92% marks a steep drop from 51.79% in 2022. There are some bright spots: turnout in Mackenzie District in Canterbury is currently 48.44%, much higher than the 41.43% in 2022, while Taupō is at 40.48%, a big jump from 2022’s 31.79%. Still, with many areas now falling behind last election’s cumulative totals, it looks increasingly unlikely that overall turnout will exceed the 42% reached in 2022.
Why voters are tuning out
Low local election turnout isn’t as simple as pure apathy. As researcher Jeffrey O’Neill notes in The Conversation, 77% of those who skipped the 2022 local elections did vote in the 2020 general election, suggesting disengagement isn’t the issue. Instead, voting for councillors is a more complex task: without clear party branding to signal candidates’ values or priorities, voters decide that the time and attention “costs” of researching candidates’ policies outweigh the benefits. Younger renters or students, who don’t pay rates and may not stay long in one place, struggle to see how council decisions affect them. And candidate statements tend to be anodyne and uninformative – an issue that the excellent Policy.nz site addresses by getting council candidates to state exactly what they stand for.
Meanwhile, an onslaught of negative messaging from the Beehive has eroded confidence in councils, local government expert Andy Asquith tells The Post’s Justin Wong. “We have central government saying at every possible opportunity that local government is inefficient, irresponsible and irrelevant,” he says. “People have been getting that constant message two years now and it’s not good for local government. It’s not good for democracy.” Still, O’Neill predicts engagement will eventually rebound: “when the full ratepayer bill for the central government’s ‘Local Water Done Well’ infrastructure policy comes through, the 2029 local government elections will become more engaging contests and turnout will increase.”
City is made of council
If you’ve already voted, congratulations and job well done. For everyone else, today’s the day to complete your voting papers and drop them off in a ballot bin, located inside many supermarkets, service stations and libraries. Still not convinced to vote? Hayden Donnell is here to shake you by the metaphorical shoulders: “Voting for council is important because city is made of council. Hello, are you in the hospital? OK you are using government. But did you do a poo in the hospital toilet? That’s pipes. Council. Did you get driven to the hospital on a road? Probably council unless it was a motorway straight to the hospital door. Are you in school? Fine that’s government. But did you use a pedestrian crossing to get to school? Council. Did you go on a bus? Again, council.”
He continues: “So many of your daily problems are caused by council. They get away with it because everyone thinks they’re boring and irrelevant. Sneaky! False! You need to put a stop to this. Put the letter in the red [sic] and white box’s mouth. It will gobble it up, and hopefully what comes out the other end will be a better city.”
Election day on The Spinoff
Finally, a note about The Spinoff’s election coverage. We’ll be firing up the live blog mid-morning on Saturday and updating all day and into the evening. Joel MacManus and Lyric Waiwiri-Smith (Wellington and the Hutt), Shanti Mathias (Christchurch), Tara Ward (Dunedin) and Hayden Donnell (Auckland) will be reporting from mayoral candidates’ election parties, and we’ll have lots of other fun stuff to keep you entertained while we wait for the results to roll in. Please come join us, it’ll be a blast.
