A dismal voter return and a worsening database has newly elected Waipā Networks Trust members so worried they have called for an investigation into how to improve things for the next election in three years.
When polling closed on October 1, the voter return was 14.80 per cent – 4312 votes – and 1532 voting papers were returned as “gone, no forwarding address.”
The cost to run the election was $88,149.48 – or about $20 per vote.
The News raised the database issue with Waipā Networks Ltd after discovering some voting papers were sent to the wrong addresses.
There are 40,000 electricity customers in Waipā, Waikato and Kāwhia eligible to vote for six members of the trust. Waipā Networks’ region includes Kio Kio and skirts around Ōtorohanga and across to the Kāwhia coast.
New trustees elected were Jarrod Godfrey and Philip Coles who joined incumbents Sarah Matthews, Marcus Gower, Dave McLean and Ray Milner on the trust last month,
The trust owns 7.2 million shares worth more than $194 million in Waipā Networks.
Trust manager Kayla Heeringa said address information was sourced from electricity retailers who hold the customer data and provide the compiled database to its election provider Electionnz.com
When trustees debriefed after the election, they asked about the database challenges.
“It would be challenging for us to hold our own database, given the information changes regularly and would rely on connected consumers keeping us up to date with any changes, but the trustees are keen to find a solution,” Heeringa said.
