6(c)
security guard is being put in place.
• Voting is also lower than expected.
Voting Place – South Island
• While some electorates are experiencing high turnout, others are quieter than expected.
• COVID-19 in two electorate co-located HQs impacting five staff. The electorates have put measures
in place for their staff (masks, distancing, etc.).
6(c)
• Member of the public collapsed in Kaiapoi. The person is okay.
• Late photo opportunity requested at Lincoln, voting place manager referred this to the Electorate
Manager for approval (as pre set process).
• A voting place in Selwyn is being closed for 15 minutes this afternoon for a routine fire drill. Votes
will be put in secure storage, posters will be hung in the voting places;
VOTING SERVICES ISSUES
•
Election Integrity Project: Noted all Electorate Managers have received emails outlining the
information they will asking their scrutineers to collect.
• VS, L&P, Comms and Security Teams have met to discuss. Will forward on actions to the Regional
Managers.
Enrolment
ISSUES:
ISSUE 1 • Started receiving scanned paper forms from Advance Voting Places (AVPs) (via electorate
Headquarters (HQs).
• Several forms are invalid due to missing information or quality of the form (40+) Some of these we
cannot repair, and the electors vote won’t count. examples include:
o Handwriting is unreadable
o Not signed
o No address
o Incomplete Address (e.g. 28 Wallson (not legible) Ave – nothing else)
o Signed on behalf of elector (must state clearly why signed on behalf e.g. Enduring Power of
Attorney (EPOA), or Signed by their direction, or attach ROE1A
o Incorrect date of birth (e.g. DOB 29/08/2023)
o Roll choice panel not completed – cannot determine which roll to put elector on
ISSUE 2 • Issue with receipt of eRoll updates – a number of single eRoll entries are being repeated multiple
times (i.e. a single eRoll was updated 7 times)
• This creates significant processing issues – all “instances” go into our processing queues and are
difficult to identify. We have to undertake a rather complex process, in a specific order, to ensure
the first one is keyed, and the others are all discarded.
• Investigating to determine if it is a system error, or user error. Have raised a Priority 1 ticket with IT
for urgent investigation of system functionality.
ACTION: •
Alerted all Voting Services field staff to the issue, and ensure they are not inadvertently sending the
same update multiple times (e.g. there may be a delay due to WiFi connection, operator doesn’t
think form has been sent, so sends it again etc).
IT
GENERAL UPDATE •
MOJ Criminal records check processing – Processing backlog has been cleared and a workaround is
in place to ensure processing continues. IT will continue to work with MOJ and our suppliers to
address the root cause.
•
Enrolment Centralised Processing Wi-Fi issues in Upper Hutt – Changes made to the Network
connections and Zendesk tuning for agents appear to have improved call quality to 80-90% for 20-
30% will now monitor over the next day or so to assess performance against a baseline.
•
IT Service Desk Monitoring – There were 220 calls into the desk yesterday, lower than Monday but
still an increase on last week. Volumes remain within expectations and no major issues to report.
Customer
GENERAL UPDATE:
Services
• Since yesterday, the team had 764 tickets resolved, received 116 phone calls and made 26 outbound
calls. 87% of tickets were resolved in one-touch. Telnet received 2,435 calls and 227 emails.
• The top enquiries were about EasyVote (18%), followed by Where to Vote questions (17%) and
Update details (16%).
• There are 36 complaints on hand across the business units. No significant risk to raise so far.
• The volume of EasyVote questions remains to be high and we started receiving more enquiries on ‘I
think my EasyVote pack has been stolen’. The ‘Your EasyVote card’ webpage published at mid-day
today will allow us to provide responses with confidence and drive down unnecessary contacts.
Communications
GENERAL UPDATE:
and Education
Steady volume of enquires after high volume on the first day of voting
EasyVote
Proactive media release sent just after midday to address criticism and queries about delivery of
EasyVote packs. We have also created a new page on vote.nz with this information and added a banner
to the website homepage to let people know they can vote with or without and EasyVote card.
We are preparing a new targeted advertising message to Epsom, Mt Albert and Papakura electorates
letting them know they can vote without an EasyVote card.
Media
• Themes – I voted stickers, lots of regional requests around voting services in smaller regions, stats
from first day of voting, lots of filming requests from media
• Whakaata Māori interviewing Chief Advisor, Māori at Hoani Waititi marae today
• TVNZ – Filming the Kaupapa Māori voting place in Kaikohe and interviewing our local Community
Engagement Advisor
Social Media • Themes – EasyVote delays, stickers, advertising in malls (queries around consequences)
• A lot of criticism and negative sentiment of the Commission around EasyVote delivery; tone of
commentary around ‘I voted’ stickers is much lighter and tongue in cheek
Daily metrics
• 22 media enquiries
• 472 enquiries and comments on social media in the last 24 hours
• 103,684 visitors to vote.nz (down on Monday)
Legal & Policy
GENERAL UPDATE/ISSUES
NZ Loyal applied to the High Court on 3 October to judicially review the Commission for:
• failing to meet our statutory obligations, with regard to training and access to the nominations
system
• unlawfully refusing to allow the party to amend their party list by midday on 15 September
ACTION
• The Legal team will prepare a statement of defence and continue to work with Voting Services staff
on a number of apparent breaches in buffer zones.
Strategic
GENERAL UPDATE:
Engagement and
• Receiving ongoing queries around when you can change between the Māori and general rolls
Partnership
• Hearing instances of racist incidents towards Commission’s work
Security &
GENERAL UPDATE:
Integrity
Field security incident reports received 3 October 2023
6(c)
General Election 2023 Voting
Electorates with current majority results more than estimates
Enrolment
Customer Enquiries
Overseas, Dictation
6(c)
6(c)
VOTING SERVICES ISSUES
•
Election Integrity Project: Noted all Electorate Managers have received emails outlining the
information they will asking their scrutineers to collect.
• Voting Services (VS), Legal & Policy (L&P), Comms and Security Teams have met to discuss an action
plan regarding scrutineers. Will forward on actions to the Regional Managers.
Enrolment
ISSUES:
ISSUE 1 • Receiving scanned paper forms from Advance Voting Places (AVPs).
• Several forms are invalid due to missing information or quality of the form (40+), cannot be repaired,
and the electors vote won’t count. Examples include:
o Handwriting ineligible
o Not signed
o No address
o Incomplete Address (e.g. 28 Wallson (not legible) Ave – nothing else)
o Signed on behalf of elector (must state clearly why signed on behalf e.g. Enduring Power of
Attorney (EPOA), or Signed by their direction, or attach ROE1A
o Incorrect date of birth (e.g. DOB 29/08/2023)
o Roll choice panel not completed – cannot determine which roll to put elector on
ISSUE 2 • Issue with receipt of eRoll updates – a number of single eRoll entries are being repeated multiple
times (i.e. a single eRoll was updated 7 times)
• Creating significant processing issues – all “instances” go into our processing queues
• Investigating to determine if it is a system error, or user error. Priority 1 ticket with IT for urgent
investigation.
ACTIONS: •
Alerted all Voting Services field staff to the issue, and ensure they are not inadvertently sending the
same update multiple times (e.g. there may be a delay due to WiFi connection, operator doesn’t
think form has been sent, so sends it again etc).
• Voting Services to expedite message on Pānui to ensure Electorate Managers speak to Voting Place
staff to take special care when checking and completing enrolment forms and eRoll updates.
IT
GENERAL UPDATE •
MOJ Criminal records check processing – Processing backlog has been cleared and a workaround is
in place to ensure processing continues. IT will continue to work with MOJ and our suppliers to
address the root cause.
•
Enrolment Centralised Processing Wi-Fi issues in Upper Hutt – Changes made to the Network
connections and Zendesk tuning for agents appear to have improved call quality to 80-90% for 20-
30% will now monitor over the next day or so to assess performance against a baseline.
•
IT Service Desk Monitoring – There were 220 calls into the desk yesterday, lower than Monday but
still an increase on last week. Volumes remain within expectations and no major issues to report.
Customer
GENERAL UPDATE:
Services
• Since yesterday, the team had 764 tickets resolved, received 116 phone calls and made 26 outbound
calls. 87% of tickets were resolved in one-touch. Telnet received 2,435 calls and 227 emails.
• The top enquiries were about EasyVote (18%), followed by Where to Vote questions (17%) and
Update details (16%).
• There are 36 complaints on hand across the business units.
• The volume of EasyVote questions remains to be high and we started receiving more enquiries on ‘I
think my EasyVote pack has been stolen’. The ‘Your EasyVote card’ webpage published at mid-day
today will allow us to provide responses with confidence and drive down unnecessary contacts.
Communications
GENERAL UPDATE:
and Education
Steady volume of enquires after high volume on the first day of voting
EasyVote
Proactive media release sent just after midday to address criticism and queries about delivery of
EasyVote packs. Created a new page on vote.nz with this information and added a banner to the website
homepage to let people know they can vote with or without and EasyVote card.
Preparing a new targeted advertising message to Epsom, Mt Albert and Papakura electorates letting
them know they can vote without an EasyVote card.
Media
• Themes – I voted stickers, lots of regional requests around voting services in smaller regions, stats
from first day of voting, lots of filming requests from media
• Whakaata Māori interviewing Chief Advisor, Māori at Hoani Waititi marae today
• TVNZ – Filming the Kaupapa Māori voting place in Kaikohe and interviewing our local Community
Engagement Advisor
Social Media • Themes – EasyVote delays, stickers, advertising in malls (queries around consequences)
• A lot of criticism and negative sentiment of the Commission around EasyVote delivery; tone of
commentary around ‘I voted’ stickers is much lighter and tongue in cheek
Daily metrics
• 22 media enquiries
• 472 enquiries and comments on social media in the last 24 hours
• 103,684 visitors to vote.nz (down on Monday)
Legal & Policy
GENERAL UPDATE/ISSUES
NZ Loyal applied to the High Court on 3 October to judicially review the Commission for:
• failing to meet our statutory obligations, with regard to training and access to the nominations
system
• unlawfully refusing to allow the party to amend their party list by midday on 15 September
ACTION
• The Legal team will prepare a statement of defence and continue to work with Voting Services staff
on a number of apparent breaches in buffer zones at Voting Places.
Strategic
GENERAL UPDATE:
Engagement and
• Receiving ongoing queries around when you can change between the Māori and General rolls
Partnership
• Hearing instances of racist incidents towards Commission’s work
Security &
GENERAL UPDATE:
Integrity
Field security incident reports received 3 October 2023
Type
Reported
Resolved
Voting Place Disruption
3
3
Staff
1
1
• Three voting place disruptions.
o 2 Oct Westfield Malls - Party advertising close to Voting Places was highlighted by member of
public. One VP was closed while advertising was removed.
o 3 Oct Thames – Local person loudly disrupting Voting Place. Was moved on.
o 3 Oct Auckland malls – Increased amount of filming outside 10m cordon. Not disruptive.
•
6(c)
People and
GENERAL UPDATE:
Culture (P&C)
Recruitment:
• Offers
1131
