15 29 09 2023.pdf

29/09/2023– Situation Report Week 3
As at 12.29pm on 29/09/2023 prepared by Crispian

Distributed to
All GEDT members
Key Contacts
Anusha Guler and Crispian

Previous ELT
2 ELT Standup SITREPS 3 28092023 FINAL.docx
SITREP
Overview
Summary of the weekly event
•  Queenstown and Southland state of emergency lifted (23/09)
•  Overseas voting and dictation have started.
•  Protests around Parliament take place on Thursday 28 September. The Incident Management team
(IMT) was stood up on the 26th September, and the daily IMT Sitrep will be shared with the Taskforce
members.
Key Dates
Days to advance voting
3 days
Days to election day

15 days
Voting Services
GENERAL UPDATE/ISSUES:
Overseas Operations
•  The Overseas Voting Place delayed delivery situation is the same as yesterday, but now only one
Overseas Voting Place has access to the Voting Papers via download from Tupu. Ankara, Turkey is the
only Overseas Voting Place with the comms still displayed on the website.
•  Over 12000 downloads of Voting Papers with 3210 uploaded to 28/09.
•  70 dictation votes received to 28/09
•  More information here: - Overseas, Dictation, and Remote Voting: Overseas, Dictation,
Remote, eLearn - Tableau Cloud
Voting Place – SI
•  Verbal Update
•  All going to plan. Supplies going to the regional hubs.
•  Secure storage facilities QT, container, couldn’t get open…bummer!
•  Take supplies through to Alex to repair door.
•  All fine.
•  Setting shops today or tmrw, commercial premises, setups complete by Sunday night
•  No issues here
•  Last minute back filling – ppl dropped out. All good
•
Voting Place – Central NI
•  All Electorate Managers have been spoken to and voting is ready to commence on Monday. Rural
and regional electorates in the region have begun deliveries to secure storage facilities.
•  The focus for electorate teams now is to ensure they are ready to respond to issues as they arise and
to ensure their staffing levels are adequate for the second week of advance voting and election day.
•  No roads of significance are shut in the region and the weather events earlier in the week provided
no material damage. The weather in Coromandel, Bay of Plenty, Tauranga and Taupo is being
watched this weekend.
•  Setting up VPs in the weekend.
•  HAvents lost any significant staff number – looking good for staff
•  Weather nothing significant
•  Trucks to secured storage. All good.

Voting Place – Auckland North
•  Nothing to report on.
Voting Place – Auckland South
•  Visited all 12 Headquarters (HQs) over the past 3 days.  Spoke with Electorate Managers (EMs),
Logistics and Supplies Managers (LSMs) and Recruitment& Rostering Managers (RRMs).  All ready
and prepared for distributing and setting up Advance Voting Places (AVPs) over the weekend or
Monday
•  Advance Voting Places Managers (AVPMs) picking up voting materials
•  RRMs struggling with people pulling out and changing times.  Bench thinning out.  All have a good
pool of people in Snaphire to draw on. Not an issue at this stage.
•  Setting up malls over the weekend
Voting Place – Wellington (Larissa running late to GEDT)
•  No issues for readiness for Monday opening VPs in the region
EasyVote – Issue One
•  While processing Mt Albert, NZPost staff have found Epsom voting place inserts within the boxes of
Mt Albert’s inserts.  This impacts 18,000 packs which will be needed to be re-printed and produced.
•  DECISION REQUIRED: Reprint Epsom, hold it up, delay, + impact delivery 2nd week AV?. – Risk + nd
comms. Stopped all production for Mt A + EP until investigate more.
•  Mt Albert 18k enveloped completed but stopped. Redo.
EasyVote – Issue Two
•  Some Te Tai Hauāuru candidate sheets have been found in the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti electorate EasyVote
packs.  The Commission was made aware via social media.  Based on preliminary information, we
believe this is an isolated incident.  Investigation is ongoing.
EasyVote – Issue Three
•  We have been informed that two trays of Te Atatū EasyVote packs (~700) have been identified by
NZPost as being ‘unsalvageable’ after getting wet in transit.  Further information is yet to be
provided by NZPost.
ACTION: Principal Advisor Voting Services is liaising with NZPost
Enrolment
MANAGEMENT OF ISSUES
Error Audit
•  The audit of enrolment records, following the identification of two errors relating to roll choice has
been completed.
•  The full high-risk population of 1st time Māori electors enrolled since the end of MEO has been
checked.
•  19 records have been fixed to align to elector intent. This is 2.7% of the high-risk records.
•  All but two electors have been contacted. (those two didn’t include contact details).
•  All electors whose records have been fixed and will be sent an updated Easyvote letter (we have
checked, and all were included in last night's extract).
Easyvote Supplementary letter data extract
•  The extract and Quality Assurance (QA) was successfully completed last night, and approval to send
to printers obtained this morning.
•  66,137 records were extracted.  62,986 General Roll and 3,151 Māori Roll.
Potential issue with Online enrolment confirmation email
•  Issue being investigated by IT.
General Update
•  Small teams of enrolment staff will be working tomorrow (Saturday) in each of the three enrolment

processing centres.
IT
GENERAL UPDATE
•  Cert NZ (Computer Emergency Response Team) critical ‘Webp’ vulnerability – Our Initial impact
assessment coupled with advice from NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre) has provided some
comfort that our systems patching regime has provided a good level of mitigation. Work will
continue to validate risk and deliver further mitigation as required.
•  Connectivity Issue 25/9 - No further service issues.  IT have worked with our service delivery partner
Cello to implement proactive monitoring and associated assurance to minimise risk of reoccurrence.
•  Field Users Mobile Connectivity – All now in hand, completing final deliveries/activations today
29/9.
•  Interactive Voice Recognition Call Quality Issues – Testing on 28/9 confirmed business acceptance.
•  Enrolment Centralised Processing Wi-Fi issues in Upper Hutt – Continuing to monitor call quality
issues. Hard wired Network connections being deployed and tested today. Higher spec Contact
Centre headsets ordered and due Monday.
Customer
General Update:
Services
•  Since yesterday, the team had 466 tickets created, received 78 phone calls and made 10 outbound
calls. 89% of tickets were resolved.
•  Telnet received 1,323 calls and 154 emails; the call volume was doubled than last week.
•  There has been an increasing volume of voting questions since Wednesday. The majority of
enquiries remain to be about updating enrolment details.
•  There are 9 complaints on hand across the business units. No major issue or risk to raise.
•  Over the last 48 hours, 41 new knowledge base articles were added to Zendesk – this is an indication
of a high level of preparation efforts going on.
Communications
General Update:
and Education
Media
•  Requests for information on advance voting and Māori enrolment figures.
•  ABC wants to do an interview around overseas voting; a request from NewsRoom on our headcount
and hires.
•  Lots of requests for filming at a voting places.

Any risks or issues
•  This morning, an EasyVote error was posted, in that the Te Tai Hauāuru candidates have been
included in the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti EasyVote pack. We have prepared a holding statement for media and
social media.
•  A lot of people (50 – 60 of the first 600 uploads) using the upload download service have typed the
signature, making their vote invalid.
ACTION: Strongly emphasised the info on vote.nz telling voters that they need to sign their ballot papers
manually.

•  An issue has been raised that on WeChat people are sharing information about voting online and
potentially using the upload and download service from within New Zealand.
ACTION: Referred to overseas team and IT team for advice; preparing FAQs for community engagement
team and will look for opportunities in media partnership activity to reinforce correct information about
voting in NZ.
ACTION: Reactive FAQs prepared to respond to enrolment issues around Māori and general roll, if
needed.
Daily metrics
•  5 media enquiries
•  155 enquiries and comments on social media
•  52783 visitors to vote.nz
Strategic
Issue:

MetService
Friday
Extended
North Island: Showers clearing in the south and east, but becoming frequent in the west from Waitomo
Forecast 29-1
southwards. South Island: Isolated showers in the east. Periods of rain elsewhere, but widespread and
October
possibly heavy in the west.
Saturday
North Island: Rain or showers for most, some heavy, easing late. South Island: Showers for most, but
clearing in Westland.
Sunday
North Island: Becoming fine in the east and south. Cloudy periods and the odd shower elsewhere. South
Island: Rain or showers in the west, mainly fine elsewhere.
Chatham Islands
Showers and westerlies. Showers becoming isolated later on Saturday.

Enrolment Dashboard

Customer Enquiries and Complaints Dashboard

Overseas and Dictation

29/09/2023– ELT Situation Report Week 3
As at 2.12pm on 29/09/2023 prepared by Crispian
, approved by Anusha Guler
Distributed to
All GEDT members
Key Contacts
Anusha Guler and Crispian

Previous ELT
2 ELT Standup SITREPS 3 28092023 FINAL.docx
SITREP
Overview
Summary of the weekly event
•  Queenstown and Southland state of emergency lifted (23/09)
•  Overseas voting and dictation have started.
•  Protests around Parliament take place on Thursday 28 September. The Incident Management team
(IMT) was stood up on the 26th September, and the daily IMT Sitrep will be shared with the Taskforce
members.
•  IMT deactivated.
•  Final preparation for Advance Voting.
Key Dates
Days to advance voting
3 days
Days to election day

15 days
Voting Services
GENERAL UPDATE/ISSUES:
Overseas Operations
•  Ankara, Turkey is the only Overseas Voting Place which has access to the Voting Papers via download
from Tupu. Communication is displayed on the website.
•  Over 12000 downloads of Voting Papers with 3210 uploaded to 28/09.
•  70 dictation votes received to 28/09
Voting Place – South Island
•  All going to plan.
•  Supplies are being delivered to the regional hubs.
•  Encountered an issue with the secure storage facilities in Queenstown as staff were unable to open
the container doors. Door is to be repaired.
•  Setting up Voting Places at shops today and tomorrow, will be completed by Sunday night.
•  Last minute back filling of staff as people become unavailable.
Voting Place – Central North Island
•  All Electorate Managers have been spoken to and voting is ready to commence on Monday. Rural
and regional electorates in the region have begun deliveries to secure storage facilities.
•  The focus for electorate teams now is to ensure they are ready to respond to issues as they arise and
to ensure staffing levels are adequate for the second week of advance voting and election day.
•  No roads of significance are shut in the region and the weather events earlier in the week provided
no material damage. The weather in Coromandel, Bay of Plenty, Tauranga and Taupo is being
watched this weekend.
•  Setting up Voting Places in malls over in the weekend.
•  Staff situation all under control.
Voting Place – Auckland North
•  No report provided. Peter was not in attendance at Taskforce.
Voting Place – Auckland South
•  Visited all 12 Headquarters (HQs) over the past 3 days. All ready and prepared for distribution and
setting up of Advance Voting Places (AVPs) over the weekend or early Monday
•  Advance Voting Places Managers (AVPMs) picking up voting materials.

•  Setting up malls over the weekend.
•  Recruitment and Rostering Managers (RRMs) struggling with people pulling out and changing times
but not an issue at this stage.
Voting Place – Wellington
•  No report provided. No issues expected. Larissa not in attendance at Taskforce.
EasyVote – Issue One
•  While processing Mt Albert Easyvote packs, NZPost staff have found Epsom voting place inserts
within the boxes of Mt Albert’s inserts.  This impacts 18,000 packs which will be needed to be re-
printed and produced.
•  Stopped all production for Mt Albert and Epsom until a decision is made. This will have an impact on
the delivery tovoters.
EasyVote – Issue Two
•  Some Te Tai Hauāuru candidate sheets have been found in the Ikaroa-Rāwhiti electorate EasyVote
packs.  The Commission was made aware via social media.  Based on preliminary information, we
believe this is an isolated incident.  Investigation is ongoing.
EasyVote – Issue Three
•  We have been informed that two trays of Te Atatū EasyVote packs (~700) have been identified by
NZPost as being ‘unsalvageable’ after getting wet in transit.  Further information is yet to be
provided by NZPost.
ACTION:
•  More information is required before any decisions are made on the impacted Easyvote packs
•  Voting Services is investigating the issue with
and NZ Post.
6(a)
Enrolment
MANAGEMENT OF ISSUES
Error Audit
•  The audit of enrolment records, following the identification of two errors relating to roll choice has
been completed.
•  The full high-risk population of 1st time Māori electors enrolled since the end of MEO has been
checked.
•  19 records have been fixed to align to elector intent. This is 2.7% of the high-risk records.
•  All but two electors have been contacted. (those two didn’t include contact details).
•  All electors whose records have been fixed and will be sent an updated Easyvote letter
Easyvote Supplementary letter data extract
•  The extract and Quality Assurance (QA) was successfully completed last night, and approval to send
to printers obtained this morning.
•  66,137 records were extracted.  62,986 General Roll and 3,151 Māori Roll.
Potential issue with Online enrolment confirmation email
•  Issue being investigated by IT.
General Update
•  Small teams of enrolment staff will be working tomorrow (Saturday) in each of the three enrolment
processing centres.
IT
GENERAL UPDATE
•  Cert NZ (Computer Emergency Response Team) critical ‘Webp’ vulnerability – Our Initial impact
assessment coupled with advice from NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre) has provided some
comfort that our systems patching regime has provided a good level of mitigation. Work will
continue to validate risk and deliver further mitigation as required.
•  Connectivity Issue 25/9 - No further service issues.  IT have worked with our service delivery partner
Cello to implement proactive monitoring and associated assurance to minimise risk of reoccurrence.

•  Field Users Mobile Connectivity – All now in hand, completing final deliveries/activations today
29/9.
•  Interactive Voice Recognition Call Quality Issues – Testing on 28/9 confirmed business acceptance.
•  Enrolment Centralised Processing Wi-Fi issues in Upper Hutt – Continuing to monitor call quality
issues. Hard wired Network connections being deployed and tested today. Higher spec Contact
Centre headsets ordered and due Monday.
Customer
General Update:
Services
•  Since yesterday, the team had 466 tickets created, received 78 phone calls and made 10 outbound
calls. 89% of tickets were resolved.
•  Telnet received 1,323 calls and 154 emails; the call volume was doubled than last week.
•  There has been an increasing volume of voting questions since Wednesday. The majority of
enquiries remain to be about updating enrolment details.
•  There are 9 complaints on hand across the business units. No major issue or risk to raise.
•  Over the last 48 hours, 41 new knowledge base articles were added to Zendesk
Communications
General Update:
and Education
Media
•  Requests for information on advance voting and Māori enrolment figures.
•  ABC wants to do an interview around overseas voting; a request from NewsRoom on our headcount
and hires.
•  Lots of requests for filming at a voting places.
•  An issue has been raised that on WeChat people are sharing information about voting online and
potentially using the upload and download service from within New Zealand.
ACTION:
•  Referred to overseas team and IT team for advice; preparing FAQs for community engagement team
and will look for opportunities in media partnership activity to reinforce correct information about
voting in NZ.
•  Reactive FAQs prepared to respond to enrolment issues around Māori and general roll, if needed.
•  Strongly emphasised the info on vote.nz telling voters that they need to sign their ballot papers
manually.
Daily metrics
•  5 media enquiries
•  155 enquiries and comments on social media
•  52783 visitors to vote.nz
Strategic
Issue:
Engagement and
•  Overnight we learned of messages circulating within the Auckland Chinese community on WeChat
Partnership
encouraging people to vote using the overseas voting forms (potentially confusing this with
Advanced Voting). Catalyst scan for NZ URLs and if the vote is done in NZ it will mean their vote is
invalid and will be removed.

ACTIONS:
•  Referred to overseas team and IT team; Comms team preparing FAQs for community engagement
team and will look for opportunities in Chinese media partnership activity to reinforce correct
information about voting in NZ.
•  FAQ will be provided to engagement and enquiries staff.
Update:
•  Received enquiries from tangata whenua groups wanting more voting places. At an event in Napier
yesterday evening, community members indicated they will start approaching other Voting Places
(VPs - particularly Kaupapa Māori) to see if they can help them establish their own.
Security &
General Update:
Integrity
•  All under control with protesters and therefore Incident Management Team (IMT) deactivated.
Communication has been sent to staff for those working tomorrow, around security precautions.