Local Elections 2019
This page contains information about the 2019 local elections.
Every three years elections are held for local authorities. This includes mayors, Councillors, community board members and local board members. These are the triennial elections. The next election is 2019.
2019 Election
The next elections will be held on 12 October 2019.
The triennial elections of regional councils, city and district councils, community boards and local boards are held at the same time as elections for district health boards and licensing trusts.
Check Council's Election Statistics
Key dates for local authority elections 2019.
- 1 July 2019 - Electoral Commission enrollment campaign starts.
- 19 July 2019 - Nominations open for candidates. Nominations have to be sent to the electoral officer for the council, district health board or licensing trust. Rolls open for inspection at council offices and other sites locally.
- 16 August 2019 - Nominations close at 12 noon.
- 16 August 2019 - Rolls close. After this date, anyone who is entitled to vote and who is not enrolled as an elector, or whose details are incorrectly recorded on the roll, will have to cast a ‘special vote’.
- 21 August 2019 - Election date and candidates’ names publicised by electoral officers.
- 20-25 September 2019 - Voting documents delivered to households. Electors can post the documents back to electoral officers as soon as they have voted.
- 12 October 2019 Polling day — The voting documents must be at the council before voting closes at 12 noon. Preliminary results (i.e. once all ‘ordinary’ votes are counted) will be available as soon as possible afterwards.
- 17-23 October 2019 (or as soon as practicable) - Official results (including all valid ordinary and special votes) declared.
Anyone who is correctly enrolled can vote in the local elections where they live. Electors have until mid-August of the election year to get on the roll before the rolls close for the local elections.
Voters who own property within a local council area, but who usually live outside this, can also apply to go on the ratepayer roll. They will then be able to vote in the area where they pay rates, and the area where they live. To go on the ratepayer roll, you need to apply to the electoral officer for the local council area in which you own property but do not usually live. The electoral officer will send you out a form to complete, sign and return so they can check your eligibility.
If you are registered on the unpublished roll, you will need to apply to the electoral officer at your local council to receive your voting papers.
Overseas voters can take part, but must ensure that they are correctly enrolled with an overseas postal address in order to receive their voting papers. Voting papers for local elections cannot be downloaded.
Electors have until mid-August of the election year to get on the roll before the rolls close for the local elections.
After that date, if an eligible elector is not on the roll, or their roll details are wrong, they may cast a special vote. If their name is not on the roll they must apply to enrol before voting. They may also cast a special vote if their voting papers are lost or damaged, or if they can satisfy the electoral officer that it would be too difficult to cast an ordinary vote.
Anyone wanting to cast a special vote must contact the electoral officer by the day before polling day at the latest.
Candidates will generally promote themselves from the time their nominations are confirmed until the end of the election period. Often they will use newspaper or radio advertising, billboards and leaflets delivered to mail boxes. Some may use the internet - a new website. Candidates will also attend public meetings where they can present their views and answer questions from electors. The local news media will normally run stories about candidates and their campaigns during the elections.
Candidates may also provide a ‘candidate profile statement’ to the electoral officer with their nomination, which the electoral officer has to include with the voting documents posted to electors. This information might also be on the local council’s website.
Votes are processed, but not counted, as they come in. The announcement of the preliminary results will depend on the flow of the returned voting documents to electoral officers. Electoral officers have the discretion to announce progress results (i.e. votes counted to date), and some do so very soon after midday on polling day for FPP. This tends to happen more in larger areas, where there are many votes to count. The preliminary results (i.e. the count of all ordinary votes, and validated special votes) for smaller councils using FPP might be available within a few hours of the close of voting on polling day.
Under FPP, candidates' vote tallies increase progressively as more and more votes are counted. It is possible to predict whether the uncounted votes could alter the outcome after a progress result, based on the margins between the candidates and how many votes there are left to count.
However, the nature of STV voting means that a very few votes can alter the result of an election by changing the order in which candidates are excluded and their votes transferred. As a result, it is less clear how a relatively small number of votes will affect the final result under STV. This is why progress results are generally not made in STV elections.
The Society of Local Government Managers' electoral working party has recommended that electoral officers release preliminary results (as distinct from progress results) for STV elections as soon as practicable. If electoral officers cannot release a preliminary result by midday on the Sunday after polling day, because they have not received all the votes to process and put through the calculator for an announcement by that time, then they should consider releasing progress results sometime after midday on Sunday.
Under the Local Electoral Act 2001 a review of representation arrangements is needed for the 2019 local elections. In mid-late 2018 Council proposed and confirmed that representation stays as it is for the 2019 elections. The current representation of the Council is 7 Councillors and the Mayor (8 total).
Council Representation: 7 members, and the Mayor, all elected ‘at large’.
Community Board Representation: no Community Boards are proposed.
Council believed that reducing the number of Councillors would impact on legal requirements to have effective representation. Increasing the number of Councillors may improve effective representation but would add to governance costs. Developing wards based on communities of interest would require considerable staff time and budget.
Local authorities are required to review their representation arrangements at least once every six years. As part of the representation review a local authority can take a fresh look at the structure of its membership and the way they are elected. This could affect the total number of members, whether they come from a ward or ‘at large’ across the wider district, the boundaries of wards and constituencies, or the names of wards and constituencies.
The Local Electoral Act 2001 requires local authorities to carry out a review of their representation arrangements at least once every six years. Council last reviewed its’ representation arrangements in 2012 for the 2013 local elections.
Representation reviews include:
- The number of Councillors to be elected to the Council;
- Whether Councillors are elected by Wards or by the District as a whole (or a mixture of both systems);
- If elected by Wards, the number, boundaries and names of these Wards and the number of Councillors that will represent them; and
- Whether to have Community Boards, and if so how many, their boundaries and membership.
All elements are subject to rights of appeal and/or objection to the Local Government Commission (LGC).
Copies of the Council’s resolution may be viewed and obtained from • Council Offices, Level 2, 96 West End, Kaikoura
Fit with Maori ward decision 2018
Māori wards are a way of ensuring Māori views and voices are heard at Council. In November 2017 Kaikōura District Council voted unanimously to create a Māori ward, a decision supported by our local rūnanga. In February 2018 a petition with 148 valid signatures opposing the Council decision was received. Under NZ law a public poll on the issue was required. The postal poll ended on 19 May 2018. The poll overturned the Council proposal and no Māori ward was created.
Understanding Council
New Zealand’s regional, district, city or unitary councils are all part of New Zealand's local government. Local government manages issues that are specific to local communities including roads, drinking water, rubbish and recycling, natural hazards, libraries and events.
Read more about local government and Councils including: what powers they have, how they are formed, how they make decisions and how you can participate by reading the factsheet below.
