Poll count farce as papers go missing

By ANDREW LAXON

The election result muddle descended into farce yesterday as the Chief Electoral Office admitted it had lost 100 ballot papers from a highly marginal electorate.

The Chief Electoral Officer, Phil Whelan, said he had called in the police to investigate the disappearance, which leaves the result of the Rangitikei seat in limbo.

Both the Electoral Office and the Labour Party say they will take legal advice on the issue today.

The National candidate, Simon Power, won Rangitikei by only 68 votes on election night.

A Labour win in the seat would make the party's candidate, Craig Walsham, an MP and lead to a reshuffle of seats among National and Labour list MPs.

However, it would not change the overall number of seats held by each party, which is decided by the party vote.

Mr Whelan said the missing ballot papers were not in envelopes which were returned to the electorate headquarters.

He said he was very concerned and had asked the police to treat the disappearance with "the highest of priority."

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice later confirmed that the missing votes had been counted on election night and were due to be recounted.

They made up a third of the ballots cast at the Himatangi Beach Community Hall polling booth and did not belong to any one party.

The spokeswoman said a polling clerk was dismissed before the election for interfering with a Labour hoarding and the matter was referred to the police.

However, there was no information to suggest the two cases were linked.

Palmerston North police said last night they had heard nothing so far about the office's request for an investigation.

The case of the missing ballot papers is the latest in a string of embarrassments for the office in the running of the election.

Some crucial results on election night were delayed until 2 am, apparently because returning officers were told to count referendum votes before election votes.

The Ministry of Justice is conducting an inquiry, using independent experts to interview all 67 returning officers and 500 electoral staff.

Prime Minister-designate Helen Clark described the election-night count as a nightmare.