Online voting trial uncertain

The larger of nine councils with the biggest voting blocks would need to confirm they were staying in an online voting trial to keep the project alive. FILE PHOTO

Christchurch says no, future hinges on other councils

A decision by Christchurch City Council not to join an online voting trial for next year's local body elections has raised doubts over whether the trial can go ahead, but has not torpedoed it.

Christchurch city was one of the bigger players in the proposed trial which includes Masterton District Council and the trial's future is now likely to hinge on Wellington City, Dunedin City and Marlborough District Council all staying on board.

The 10 councils that last May agreed to participate in the trial have been approached a second time to confirm, something Masterton did last week.

But with the departure of Christchurch, the larger councils with the biggest voting blocks would need to confirm in order to secure the trial.

Masterton mayor Lyn Patterson said yesterday indications were that the departure of Christchurch may not affect the costs of the trial to others.

"But we are still waiting to see what Dunedin, Wellington and Marlborough decide."

Masterton uses electionz.com as its election service provider and had all 10 of the original councils stayed on board it was estimated the cost of next year's election would rise by $60,043.

Of that $21,466 would be the district council's share and the remainder would be spread across the five other organisations that are up for election within the district.

Warwick Lampp, of electionz.com, said while it was unfortunate Christchurch had pulled out it would be about two weeks, by which time all the councils should have responded, before the financial viability of proceeding with a trial was established.

An online voting trial would ultimately be a decision made by central government and would mean voters would still receive postal voting papers but these would be coded to allow them to vote online instead of returning them.