Auckland Council to move to booth voting in 2028

"Auckland Council has voted to bring back in-person voting for the 2028 local elections, becoming the first council in New Zealand to use voting booths since 1992."

To address issues with a diminishing postal system and help strengthen integrity and resilience of the electoral system, the Governing Body (Mayor and Councillors) has voted to change how we vote in our next local election. Under the new model, Aucklanders will cast their votes at staffed voting booths across 10-days (including 2 weekends) and on election day, similar to the way we vote in parliamentary elections.

The options available under current legislation were postal voting, booth voting, or a combination of both. Online voting is not currently enabled under legislation (so requires Parliament to change the law).

This was supported by most local boards (13 supported booth voting, 4 supported staying with postal, and 4 supported a combination of both) including the Howick Local Board (see our full feedback here: https://aucklandcouncil.resolve.red/portal/meeting/12501/99216?showMinutes=1).

There was a lot of debate on the issue and it wasn't unanimous (winning 13 votes to 3). It was interesting to hear the input from Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board who have experienced the challenges with unsecure postal voting.

Unfortunately democracy isn't cheap - the approval from the Governing Body is to utilise council staff, equipment and venues as much as possible within a cap of $20M (estimates by staff were $31-40M). It's worth noting that continuing with the postal process would cost an estimated $16M (higher than the $11M in 2025) showing the rising costs of the postal process.

Staff will report back on options for reducing costs in December, with final funding requirements to be considered as part of Auckland Council's Long-term Plan 2027-2037 process.

Personally I've never been comfortable with elected members making decisions around how elections are run (including funding) as there is an inherent conflict of interest. This isn't a comment on the decision or the individuals involved - its a strong view that our democracy should serve the people, not the politicians. This isn't hard to fix - shifting responsibility for local government elections to the Electoral Commission (as supported by the Howick Local Board, Auckland Council, and Local Government New Zealand) would be a logical solution and align with how parliamentary elections are run.

https://ourauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/media-centre/2026/october/auckland-to-move-to-booth-voting-for-2028-elections/