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A recount sought by the Maori Party in Te Tai Hauāuru’s electorate has seen party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer’s total drop by five votes.
Successful Labor incumbent Adrian Rurawhe won 13 votes, Ngarewa-Packer lost five, and the overall vote dropped by six in what has been called a “clerical error” in the initial recount.
This month, the Maori Party sought a recount of two Maori seats, although they said they were not seeking to overturn the results.
The other seat was Auckland, where then-co-leader John Tamihere opposed Labor incumbent Peeni Henare.
Robert Kitchin / Things
Maori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer lost votes.
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President Che Wilson said the party sought to highlight biases against Maori voters at the polls.
Wilson said that some Maori voters were forced to cast special votes at polling stations and that difficulties in casting a vote meant that some simply left before voting.
He said the party was “bombarded with complaints” about voting during the two-week early voting period. The recount would allow the party to analyze informal votes (votes considered incorrect that do not count towards the result), he said.
Wellington District Court Judge Kevin Kelly said the count resulted in only “minor variations” from the official count announced on November 6.
Robert Kitchin / Things
Maori Party MP Rawiri Waititi on his first day in Parliament.
He said that when confirmation was required as to whether a vote was in fact informal, he inspected it.
The judge said that “actually, there is no real uncertainty about informal votes.”
“Informal voting, for the most part, was divided into two categories: those in which no votes were registered for any candidate and those in which more than one candidate was voted.”
In the end, the overall vote total decreased by six; the judge said the difference was explained by “clerical or transcription errors in the recording of the original number of votes counted.”
David White / Stuff
Former Maori Party co-leader John Tamihere seeking a recount in Tāmaki Makaurau.
Maori Party candidate Rawiri Waititi won his seat in Waiariki, which spans the Bay of Plenty and southern Waikato, and was joined by Ngarewa-Packer on the list after special votes were counted.
Now in Parliament, Waititi took on the role of Tamihere’s male co-director.
In the end, Rurawhe’s vote increased from 12,147 to 12,160. Ngarewa-Packer went from 11,112 to 11,107.
The total vote count fell from 25,662 to 25,656.
