Election mix-up brings 1000 apologies

MISTAKEN IDENTITY: The incorrect profile and apology with the correct profile of Jock Kershaw. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

More than 1000 apology letters had to be sent out to Wairarapa residents in a local body election botch-up.

The profile of Masterton Licensing Trust candidate Jock Kershaw was mixed up with a Taupo candidate in a voting pack sent out to residents last week. The profile had Mr Kershaw's photograph with information relating to Taupo District Council candidate Doug Simmons.

"I farmed in the Waikato for 35 years ... After moving to Taupo in 1995, I've joined the Taupo Moana Rotary Club," the profile read.

Mr Kershaw, from Masterton, said the electorate office response had been "prompt and appropriate". "They are sending a correction notice and my correct profile to all the voters in the Carterton area ... so hopefully no harm will come of it."

Despite saying he was not annoyed by the mistake, Mr Kershaw said he thought it was "significantly worse" than the misspelling of a candidate's name. Almost 18,000 correction letters were sent out to people in Wellington's southern ward after the surname of candidate Donald McDonald was spelt incorrectly on voting papers as "MacDonald".

Electionz chief returning officer Warwick Lampp said the mistake had been caused by a "printing and proofing error".

"The moral of the story is that these types of errors do occur. It's human error. Despite all the checks these sorts of things sometimes do happen," Mr Lampp said.

He said the error was spotted in time to correct before sending the profiles out to Masterton and Tararua residents, but was too late to fix for the 1261 people in the Masterton Licensing Trust Carterton boundary.

"Due to the printing time we couldn't fix [the packs] in Carterton so the only option was a letter to each of these residents saying the profile you have got is not the correct one, here is the correct one."

He said Mr Kershaw's response to the mistake had been "considered and realistic".

Electionz deals with 39 of the 79 councils nationwide and Mr Lampp said he was not aware of any other mistakes. "[But] there probably has been somewhere. There's (sic) quite a lot of councils we don't do."

The error did not effect Mr Simmons, whose profile ran correctly, and he was unaware of the mix-up but found it humorous, joking: "I'm going to be busy. I'm going to be all over the place."