The Electoral Commission has not yet responded to a request for confirmation that votesafe.nz had no involvement in their flyers being found in some EasyVote packs.

More than a dozen people have received copies of the votesafe.nz flyer inside their EasyVote packs, but there is still no official word as to how this might have happened.

The Electoral Commission has been asked to confirm, urgently, that votesafe.nz had no involvement in packing the EasyVote envelopes.

The Chief Electoral Officer advised on Wednesday that the Commission “is undertaking a quick but thorough investigation and is seeking to bring this issue to a close as soon as possible.” As yet, though, no further response has been received.

Meanwhile the voting process continues and the debacle has led to widespread speculation, including accusations of interference by the votesafe.nz campaign.

“We have been unfairly accused of interfering with a hugely important democratic process,” says Henoch Kloosterboer, the votesafe.nz campaign manager. “To do so would be utterly contrary to the principles on which our campaign is being run.”

“Votesafe.nz commissioned the printing and distribution of flyers some of which were distributed by New Zealand Post. EasyVote envelopes were packed and distributed by New Zealand Post. Although the same printer was used by the two organisations, it seems most likely that the mix-up was caused by human error at the packaging stage.”

“The Electoral Commission’s delay has allowed some people to form their own incorrect conclusions. This has occurred at a critical time in a campaign that was very emotive already.”

“People have started casting their votes in record numbers in a binding referendum; one that is literally a matter of life and death. We need these accusations to be put to rest as a matter of utmost urgency.”

“As we all know, human error can have serious consequences. Ironically, this is the main point of our whole campaign.”

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