12.10.04

Possible Election Night Glitch For Porirua City Elections

There may have been a glitch in the system relating to counting of votes for the Porirua City Council and Porirua Licensing Trust elections on Saturday 9 October 2004.

This same glitch has affected other Councils in the region. Porirua City Council CEO Dr Roger Blakeley said he had been advised that a number of votes in Porirua may not have been captured in the data conversion prior to going through the counting process. “If this is so, then votes will need to be re-counted with all votes captured.”

The election process in Porirua is managed under contract by Elections.Com, a private company specialising in election processes, with the processing of documents being undertaken by Datamail at their Petone site.

Dr Blakeley said the extent of the problem in Porirua was not yet known. “Elections.Com is looking into the situation with considerable urgency and we will let people know the outcome as soon as we know.”

All results remain provisional until final results have been confirmed and independently verified. “We will be requesting an urgent independent review conducted by the Auditor General’s Office.”

In the meantime, Dr Blakeley said the current Council remained in place.

ENDS

© Scoop Media