06 18 09 2023.pdf

18/09/2023– Situation Report Week 2
As at 11.40am on 18/09/2023 prepared by Crispian

Distributed  All GEDT members
to
Key
Anusha Guler and Crispian

Contacts

Martin to chair the meeting.
Previous
3 ELT Standup SITREP 1 15092023 - Final.docx
ELT SITREP
Overview
Summary of the current event
•  There was 1 important major event – Writ Day (Sunday, 10 Sep)
•  Taskforce is fully activated.
•  ELT Standups activated.
•  MIKE will be closed once processing is completed - Roll Close (13/09)
•  MIKE is closed. (14/09)
•  Data extraction and QA process.
•  Data release and Roll Print QA (15/09)
•  Close of nominations at midday.
•  Wild weather over the weekend (16-17/09)
•  Easyvotes print

Voting
UPDATE ON CRITICAL ISSUES:
Services
EMS – AAD – Tupu interplay
(VS)
•  Over the past two weeks the Commission’s helpdesks (
,
) have
received a significant number of calls relating to voting place (VP) staff trying to access their
eLearning.  It has been difficult to nail-down the actual issues being faced.
•  Due to initial understanding of the issues, VP staff were initially forwarded to the HQs for help.  It
became increasingly clear over the past week that HQ staff were only able to resolve the issue in
a very limited number of cases, and that the issues being experienced were much wider than
that.
•  The phone number that VP staff access for eLearning help is now directed fully at the eLearning
helpdesk, away from the HQs and CCL.
•  While it is clear that the large majority of VP staff are able to access their eLarning without
incident, the eLearning team is now receiving significantly more calls than planned for – about a
very wide variety of eLearning issues.  The team received ~1,000 calls in total in 2020 but have
already received 1,068 to date.
•  The majority of issues appear to relate to the ‘single-sign on’ (SSO) process required for some
voting place staff roles – VPMs, VAs and ISOs.
Issues we can address:
•  Ensuring VP staff get to the right Tupu login site.  There are two Tupu sites as a result of the SSO
requirements.  Those needing to complete SSO requirements go to one, while issuing officers are
directed to another.
•  Helping staff finding it easier to login. The non-technical nature of our staff means that some are
finding it difficult to complete the SSO process, which requires them to get through at least one
MFA challenge.
•  The above are exacerbated by staff having multiple VP roles.  This is playing out in a number of
issues (noted in category 3 below) – but some can be sorted by just helping VP staff step through
the above.
•  Ensuring the eLearning helpdesk has the resources it needs to cope with the amount of calls it is
receiving, especially as this is (a) likely to continue and (b) in some cases may only be able to be

resolved manually (e.g. via Sarah
in IT).
•  Increasing recruitment staff’s ability to understand their role and the impact of what they do in
SnapHire on how EMS and AAD
Issues that need more investigation – resolution unclear
•  A reasonably common issue is known as the ‘error writing to database’ issue.  Initial investigation
points to multiple potential causes for this, some of which will be easily resolved, some which will
not.  This needs to be worked on urgently
•  Sometimes the MFA challenge is not sending a piece of information as required to either an email
or phone.
ACTIONS
1.  Requires increased access to Zendesk. Staff have not received the full number requested for the
team (shortfall of approx. 15 licenses); immediate scaling up of the eLearning helpdesk – Martin
Rodgers
2.  Request immediate resource applied to investigating the ‘error writing to the database issue’
(compiled list of Zendesk tickets required describing the issue) – Paul

Voting Place   GENERAL UPDATE

Auckland South – Botany electorate, Friday 15th Sept 0800
•  Staff arriving at work saw a person by the HQ entry who gave the impression of being lost. Said he
was a security guard. Staff questioned him and he claimed to know nothing about the operation
inside.  RESOLVED

Enrolment
GENERAL UPDATE
•  No risks or issues to report
•  The “first book” QA on the Main/Composite Rolls and Habitation Indexes will be completed today.
•  Scannable roll “first book” checks have been completed and QA signed off.
•  MIKE reopened for use on 17 September
•  31,389 online enrolments in the queues on the morning of 18 September.  Approx 4,500 paper
forms to be scanned in, this morning
IT
UPDATE ON ISSUES:
•  eLearning Tupu access issues – Currently investigating the calls raised to identify opportunities to
simplify the process.
•  Data Platform issues – Issues reported with the platform not updating Friday have been resolved
with Deloitte over the weekend.  Root cause has highlighted need to update the data extract tool
to avoid future issues.
•  Snaphire stability and performance - System performance appears to have been addressed Close
action.
•  Key Person risk – Work in progress. Target 19/9.
•  Connectivity and call Quality Issues on IVR systems – Checking and testing progressed over the
weekend.  Confirmation of IVR numbers for election night and observed call quality issues remains
outstanding with VS.
•  Commission Infrastructure resilience – DR testing on schedule to take place between 6-8pm
19/09.
•  Security update patching between now and the election period –further update 19/9.
Comms &
GENERAL UPDATE:
Education
•  Voting places lists and mapping went live on Saturday on vote.nz
•  Electorate candidates and party lists also published on Saturday on vote.nz
Media
•  Media releases put out on Saturday about release of candidates and confirmation of voting places

generated some media interest and requests for interviews.
•  DCE Ops provided interview to NewstalkZB on Saturday following media releases going out.
Social Media
•  Increased volume of activity on our social channels
•  Lots of niche questions on election advertising and another query about NZ Loyal candidates.
•  One comment received from a repeat user with threatening content in response to one of our
Facebook ads.

Daily key metrics
•  4 media enquiries
•  135 enquiries and comments on social media over the weekend
•  32,475 visitors to vote.nz over the weekend

ACTION:
Social media threat
•  Comment was immediately hidden from our page and the user has now been blocked from our
Facebook account meaning they will no longer see any content from the Commission.
•  The post has been reported to the Security team and Police 105 because of the repeated
occurrence of these comments from this one user.
Customer
GENERAL UPDATE:
Services
•  Since Friday, the team had 423 tickets created, received 30 phone calls and made 10 outbound
calls. 91% of tickets were resolved in one-touch.
•  The top enquiry remained to be enrolment related, followed by voting questions.
•  No significant issue to raise at this point.

Strategic
INSIGHTS:
Engagement  •  Two safety related incidents over the weekend (Christchurch, Auckland) involving heckling and
and
intimidation of staff while attending events. Both were dealt with by security staff.
Partnership   •  Ongoing queries relating to voting eligibility, visa status etc.
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
MetService

Forecast for
18 Sep

Severe
A ridge of high pressure moves onto northern New Zealand from the Tasman Sea on Tuesday bringing
Weather
settled weather, then moves away to the east on Thursday. Meanwhile, a strong and moist northwest
Outlook
flow becomes established over southern New Zealand during Tuesday and early Wednesday, then a
complex trough of low pressure crosses the South Island from the west on Friday.
There is high confidence rainfall amounts will reach warning criteria about Fiordland and Stewart
Island late Wednesday and Thursday, and also about much of Westland and the Otago/Canterbury
headwaters on Thursday and Friday. There is moderate confidence a heavy rain warning being
required for the far north of Westland, Buller, far west Tasman, Nelson Lakes and also the Richmond
and Bryant ranges on Friday. Lastly, there is low confidence of heavy rain for Southland and much of
Otago on Thursday and Friday and about Mount Taranaki/Taranaki Maunga on Friday.
Additionally, there is high confidence of severe northwest gales about Canterbury, Otago, Southland
and southern Fiordland on Wednesday and Thursday. There is moderate confidence of severe
northwest gales about Wairarapa, Wellington and Marlborough on Thursday and Friday.

MetService Tuesday
Extended
North Island: Partly cloudy with isolated showers in the west, south of Waitomo. Fine elsewhere.
Forecast 19-
South Island: Periods of rain in the west. Mostly fine elsewhere, but the odd shower in the south.
22 Sep
Wednesday
North Island: Generally fine, but the odd shower in the west from Taranaki southwards. South Island:
Occasional rain in the west, possibly heavy in Fiordland. Fine elsewhere.
Thursday
North Island: Mostly fine, the odd shower in the west. Cloud increasing about the northern half later
with isolated showers. South Island: Rain in the west and south with heavy falls. Partly cloudy
elsewhere.
Friday
North Island: Cloud increasing with showers for most, but mainly fine in the east. South Island: Rain in
the west and south spreading elsewhere, heavy at times.
Chatham Islands
Fine spells, with the odd shower on Tuesday. West or northwest winds, strong at times.
Issued: 11:29pm Sun 17 Sep

EASYVOTE UPDATE

PTO - Email attached.

18/09/2023– ELT Situation Report Week 2
As at 3.57pm on 18/09/2023 prepared by Crispian
approved by Anusha Guler
Distributed  ELT
to
Key
Anusha Guler and Crispian

Contacts

Martin chaired the meeting.
Previous
3 ELT Standup SITREP 1 15092023 - Final.docx
ELT SITREP
Overview
Summary of the current events
•  Close of nominations at midday Friday 15 September
•  Ballot papers were checked and finalised and sent to
for printing.
•  Wild weather over the weekend (16-17/09)
•  Easyvotes documents being printed

Voting
UPDATE ON CRITICAL ISSUES:
Services
EMS – AAD – Tupu interplay
(VS)
•  Over the past two weeks the Commission’s helpdesks (
) have
received a significant number of calls relating to voting place (VP) staff trying to access their
eLearning.  It has been difficult to nail-down the actual issues being faced.
•  Due to initial understanding of the issues, VP staff were initially forwarded to the HQs for help.  It
became increasingly clear over the past week that HQ staff were only able to resolve the issue in
a very limited number of cases, and that the issues being experienced were much wider than
that.
•  The phone number that VP staff access for eLearning help is now directed fully at the eLearning
helpdesk, away from the HQs and CCL.
•  eLearning team is now receiving significantly more calls than planned for – about a very wide
variety of eLearning issues.  The team received ~1,000 calls in total in 2020 but have already
received 1,068 to date.
•  The majority of issues appear to relate to the ‘single-sign on’ (SSO) process required for some
voting place staff roles – VPMs, VAs and ISOs.
Issues we can address:
•  Ensure VP staff get to the right Tupu login site.  There are two Tupu sites as a result of the SSO
requirements.  Those needing to complete SSO requirements go to one, while issuing officers are
directed to another.
•  Help staff find it easier to login. The non-technical nature of our staff means that some are finding
it difficult to complete the SSO process, which requires them to get through at least one Multi
Factor Authentication (MFA) challenge.
•  The above are exacerbated by staff having multiple VP roles.  This is playing out in a number of
issues (noted in category 3 below).
•  Ensure the eLearning helpdesk has the resources it needs to cope with the amount of calls it is
receiving, especially as this is (a) likely to continue and (b) in some cases may only be able to be
resolved manually (e.g. via Sarah
in IT).
•  Increase recruitment staff’s ability to understand their role and the impact of what they do in
SnapHire on EMS and Azure Active Directory.
Issues that need more investigation – resolution unclear
•  A reasonably common issue is known as the ‘error writing to database’ issue.  Initial investigation
points to multiple potential causes for this, some of which may be easily resolved, Needs to be
worked on urgently by IT team.

•  Sometimes the MFA challenge is not sending a piece of information as required to either an email
or phone. Needs resolution by IT team.
ACTIONS
1.  Requires increased access to Zendesk. 10 licences have been approved for the central processing
team. CLOSED
2.  Request immediate resource applied to investigating the ‘error writing to the database issue’
(compiled list of Zendesk tickets required describing the issue)
Voting Place   GENERAL UPDATE
Auckland South – Botany electorate, Friday 15th Sept 0800
•  Staff arrived at work saw a person by the HQ entry who gave the impression of being lost. He said
he was a security guard. Staff questioned him and he claimed to know nothing about the
operation inside.
•  Security Incident Report has been completed. The issue is RESOLVED
Enrolment
GENERAL UPDATE
•  No risks or issues to report
•  Scannable roll “first book” checks have been completed and QA signed off.
•  MIKE reopened for use on 17 September
•  31,389 online enrolments in the queues on the morning of 18 September.
IT
UPDATE ON ISSUES:
•  eLearning Tupu access issues – Currently investigating the calls raised to identify opportunities to
simplify the process.
•  Data Platform issues – Issues reported with the platform not updating on Friday have been
resolved with Deloitte over the weekend.  Root cause has highlighted need to update the data
extract tool to avoid future issues.
•  Snaphire stability and performance - System performance appears to have been addressed Close
action.
•  Key Person risk – Work in progress. Target 19/9.
•  Connectivity and call Quality Issues on IVR systems – Checking and testing progressed over the
weekend.  Confirmation of IVR numbers for election night and observed call quality issues remains
outstanding with VS.
•  Commission Infrastructure resilience – DR testing on schedule to take place between 6-8pm
19/09.
•  Security update patching between now and the election period –further update 19/9.
Comms &
GENERAL UPDATE:
Education
•  Voting places lists and mapping went live on Saturday on vote.nz
•  Electorate candidates and party lists also published on Saturday on vote.nz
Media
•  Media releases put out on Saturday about release of candidates and confirmation of voting places
generated some media interest and requests for interviews.
•  DCE Ops provided an interview to NewstalkZB on Saturday following media releases going out.
Social Media
•  Increased volume of activity on our social channels
•  Lots of niche questions on election advertising and another query about NZ Loyal candidates.
•  One comment received from a repeat user with threatening content in response to one of our
Facebook ads.

Daily key metrics
•  4 media enquiries
•  135 enquiries and comments on social media over the weekend

•  32,475 visitors to vote.nz over the weekend

ACTION:
Social media threat
•  Comment was immediately hidden from our page and the user has now been blocked from our
Facebook account meaning they will no longer see any content from the Commission.
•  The post has been reported to the Security team and Police 105 because of the repeated
occurrence of these comments from this one user.
Customer
GENERAL UPDATE:
Services
•  Since Friday, the team had 423 tickets created, received 30 phone calls and made 10 outbound
calls. 91% of tickets were resolved in one-touch.
•  The top enquiry remained to be enrolment related, followed by voting questions.

Strategic
INSIGHTS:
Engagement  •  Two safety related incidents over the weekend (Christchurch, Auckland) involving heckling and
and
intimidation of staff while attending events. Both were dealt with by security staff
Partnership
FOR YOUR INFORMATION
MetService

Forecast for
18 Sep

Severe
A ridge of high pressure moves onto northern New Zealand from the Tasman Sea on Tuesday bringing
Weather
settled weather, then moves away to the east on Thursday. Meanwhile, a strong and moist northwest
Outlook
flow becomes established over southern New Zealand during Tuesday and early Wednesday, then a
complex trough of low pressure crosses the South Island from the west on Friday.
There is high confidence rainfall amounts will reach warning criteria about Fiordland and Stewart
Island late Wednesday and Thursday, and also about much of Westland and the Otago/Canterbury
headwaters on Thursday and Friday. There is moderate confidence a heavy rain warning being
required for the far north of Westland, Buller, far west Tasman, Nelson Lakes and also the Richmond
and Bryant ranges on Friday. Lastly, there is low confidence of heavy rain for Southland and much of
Otago on Thursday and Friday and about Mount Taranaki/Taranaki Maunga on Friday.
Additionally, there is high confidence of severe northwest gales about Canterbury, Otago, Southland
and southern Fiordland on Wednesday and Thursday. There is moderate confidence of severe

northwest gales about Wairarapa, Wellington and Marlborough on Thursday and Friday.

MetService Tuesday
Extended
North Island: Partly cloudy with isolated showers in the west, south of Waitomo. Fine elsewhere.
Forecast 19-
South Island: Periods of rain in the west. Mostly fine elsewhere, but the odd shower in the south.
22 Sep
Wednesday
North Island: Generally fine, but the odd shower in the west from Taranaki southwards. South Island:
Occasional rain in the west, possibly heavy in Fiordland. Fine elsewhere.
Thursday
North Island: Mostly fine, the odd shower in the west. Cloud increasing about the northern half later
with isolated showers. South Island: Rain in the west and south with heavy falls. Partly cloudy
elsewhere.
Friday
North Island: Cloud increasing with showers for most, but mainly fine in the east. South Island: Rain in
the west and south spreading elsewhere, heavy at times.
Chatham Islands
Fine spells, with the odd shower on Tuesday. West or northwest winds, strong at times.
Issued: 11:29pm Sun 17 Sep

18/09/2023– Situation Report Week 2
As at 1100 on 18/09/2023 prepared by Paul

Distributed to
GEDT members
Key Contacts
Paul Jepson
Status of the issue/s  Update on Issues:
•  eLearning Tupu access issues – Currently investigating the
calls raised to identify opportunities to simplify the process.
•  Data Platform issues – Issues reported with the platform not
updating Friday have been resolved with Deloitte over the
weekend. Root cause has highlighted need to update the
data extract tool to avoid future issues.
•  Snaphire stability and performance - System performance
appears to have been addressed Close action.
•  Key Person risk – Work in progress. Target 19/9.
•  Connectivity and call Quality Issues on IVR systems –
Checking and testing progressed over the weekend.
Confirmation of IVR numbers for election night and observed
call quality issues remains outstanding with VS.
•  Commission Infrastructure resilience – DR testing on
schedule to take place between 6-8pm 19/09.
•  Security update patching between now and the election
period –further update 19/9.

18/09/2023– Situation Report Week 1
As at 15/09/2023 prepared by

DRAFT
Distributed to
GEDT members
Key Contacts
Adele
Principal Advisor Voting Services
John
Manager Overseas Operations
Overview
EMS – AAD – Tupu interplay

Over the past two weeks the Commission’s helpdesks (

) have received a significant number of calls relating to voting
place (VP) staff trying to access their eLearning.  It has been difficult to nail-
down the actual issues being faced.

Due to initial understanding of the issues, VP staff were initially forwarded
to the HQs for help. It became increasingly clear over the past week that
HQ staff were only able to resolve the issue in a very limited number of
cases, and that the issues being experienced were much wider than that.

The phone number that VP staff access for eLearning help is now directed
fully at the eLearning helpdesk, away from the HQs and CCL.

While it is clear that the large majority of VP staff are able to access their
eLarning without incident, the eLearning team is now receiving significantly
more calls than planned for – about a very wide variety of eLearning issues.
The team received ~1,000 calls in total in 2020 but have already received
1,068 to date.

The majority of issues appear to relate to the ‘single-sign on’ (SSO) process
required for some voting place staff roles – VPMs, VAs and ISOs.

1.  Issues we can address:
•  Ensuring VP staff get to the right Tupu login site.  There are two Tupu
sites as a result of the SSO requirements.  Those needing to complete
SSO requirements go to one, while issuing officers are directed to
another.
•  Helping staff finding it easier to login. The non-technical nature of our
staff means that some are finding it difficult to complete the SSO
process, which requires them to get through at least one MFA
challenge.
•  The above are exacerbated by staff having multiple VP roles. This is
playing out in a number of issues (noted in category 3 below) – but
some can be sorted by just helping VP staff step through the above.
•  Ensuring the eLearning helpdesk has the resources it needs to cope
with the amount of calls it is receiving, especially as this is (a) likely to
continue and (b) in some cases may only be able to be resolved
manually (e.g. via Sarah
in IT).