Te Pāti Māori president John Tamihere has called out the Electoral Commission for what he says is "unacceptable" treatment of Māori voters on election day.
It comes after ACT's Karen Chhour, Labour's Peeni Henare, NZ First's Shane Jones and Tamihere joined The Hui special on Sunday morning, where Tamihere made the comments.
Te Pāti Māori won 2.6 percent of the party vote, an increase of 1.6 percent on the 2020 general election.
Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke won the Hauraki Waikato seat, Tākuta Ferris won Te Tai Tonga, and co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi won their respective seats.
Tamihere thanked Labour's Rino Tirikatene and Nanaia Mahuta, saying they "have been great servants for our people".
However, he added "there's a shift, intergenerationally occurring", with Te Pāti Māori's voter base mostly "between 18 and 45" years old.
"The biggest cohort of voters in the country are the 900,000 Pākehā over 50, so we've got to keep our eyes on the prize."
Tamihere then took aim at Te Kaitiaki Take Kōwhiri / Electoral Commission amid reports of long queues and other issues at voting stations.
"The way in which Māori voters are treated at booths is just unacceptable. The voters [were] being pushed into specials when they're actually on the rolls."
"[There were] not enough voting forms. No other people would be treated like that and accept it," he said.
Rawiri Waititi, Te Pāti Māori co-leader, pledged on Saturday to set up a Māori electoral commission and said the Electoral Commission should hang its head in shame after long queues and lack of enrolment papers.
Community leader Dave 'Brown Buttabean' Letele said the way some voters were treated was an "absolute disgrace".
"So many of our people that distrust the system - we finally managed to mobilise them to get them to vote - they turn up, and then this rubbish happens."
"When there's hours of queues, they're not waiting, they're not going and searching for different voting places to vote."
Letele said many whānau were turned away due to not having their EasyVote card, or the enrolment papers had run out.
"And when there are enrolment papers, they're not being offered the Māori electoral roll."
He said there were hours-long queues at west and south Auckland voting places.
On Saturday, chief electoral officer Karl Le Quesne from Te Kaitiaki Take Kōwhiri / Electoral Commission said people waiting in line after 7pm were still able to vote.
"You can still stay in the line and cast your vote."
He said additional staff were brought in to some booths to help with high demand.
The digital electoral roll had problems too, but was apparently fixed later, a Commission spokesperson said.
The app used to check voters' details if they didn't have an EasyVote card, or were in another electorate, wasn't working properly.
The issue caused delays for those casting special votes at busier booths, while voting or enrolment papers ran out at several places.
The weather closed some voting places too as high winds battered Waitaha / Canterbury.
Host Julian Wilcox asked Tamihere if he thought the race in Tāmaki Mākaurau and Te Tai Tokerau was still on as a result of long queues and lack of voting papers at some booths in the rohe.
"We'll look at the law surrounding the contest, not necessarily the outcome, but the process," Tamihere replied.
