Whistleblower alleges Manurewa ballots were stolen, filled out and returned

Summarised by Centrist

A whistleblower has reportedly supplied authorities with photographs purporting to show bundles of stolen voting papers from the 2025 Manurewa Local Board election.

The unverified allegation is that voting packs were taken from letterboxes at night, brought to an office in Manurewa, opened and marked for selected candidates before being resealed and returned to Election Services.

The photographs reportedly show the names and addresses of some voters. They have been provided to Auckland Council and the Serious Fraud Office, while Police and Election Services have also been alerted.

Auckland Council governance manager Lou-Ann Ballantyne called the claims “very serious allegations”. The council has sought advice from Police and contacted the SFO, although it has not received a formal complaint and has limited authority to investigate possible criminal activity.

Principal electoral officer Dale Ofsoske said no Manurewa voters had alerted him that their packs were missing. Possessing another person’s voting paper can carry six months’ imprisonment, while voting in another person’s name can carry up to two years.

Police are making inquiries. The SFO has declined to confirm or deny whether it has received a complaint.

Editor’s note: The latest allegations are unproven, and no connection with earlier cases has been established. But they do not arise in a vacuum.

Courts have already voided the separate 2025 Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board election after five ballot boxes yielded 79 votes cast without the rightful voters’ knowledge. Turnout in that South Auckland contest rose by more than 7% while falling across most of Auckland. The High Court upheld the decision.

Manurewa itself attracted scrutiny following the 2023 general election, when allegations emerged that census and COVID-19 vaccination information connected with Manurewa Marae had been improperly used for political campaigning. Police later found insufficient evidence to establish criminal corruption, while the SFO declined to open a serious-fraud investigation.

Official results also show that 930 valid candidate votes were cast at Manurewa Marae, almost twice the number at the electorate’s next-busiest voting place. Te Pāti Māori candidate Takutai Kemp, then the marae’s chief executive, led Labour’s Peeni Henare by 323 votes there before winning the electorate by just 42 votes.

Read more at The NZ Herald

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