Human error caused by insufficient quality assurance checks and a last-minute surge in voter enrollments is being blamed for counting errors in last year's election.
The findings of an independent review by Auditor-General John Ryan, at the request of the Electoral Commission, into the counting errors from the 2023 General Election was released on Tuesday.
The concerning review found New Zealand's election process is vulnerable to human errors that occurred last year unless investment into systems and processes to improve accuracy is made.
The review was sparked after an investigation into a journalist's query into results in one electorate confirmed there were errors in the official results. These errors did not change any of the election outcomes.
"While the Electoral Commission found that the errors did not change the candidate or party vote outcomes in any electorates, it is essential that the public has trust and confidence in the integrity of the election process and the official election results," Ryan said.
The review was critical of the pressure staff were under after an unprecedented number of last-minute voter enrollments.
It found while there are electronic processes for verifying and collating voter information, the rest of the process is manual – leaving it vulnerable to mistakes when staff are under pressure.
The report said some ballots were misplaced which led to incorrect counting, and because some people made data entry errors or did not do the checks that were required.
A ballot box was also misplaced and not counted during the official count.
"Although there was a relatively small number of errors, which did not affect the overall outcome, small errors can make a difference," the report said.
Unprecedented surge in enrollments near election day puts pressure on system
Voter turnout in 2023 was slightly lower than in 2020, with 78 percent (2,858,869 people) of eligible voters casting their vote in 2023 compared to 82 percent (2,894,486).
While voter turnout was slightly lower in last year's election, more people than ever before enrolled in the two weeks before the 2023 Election, including about 110,000 on election day.
In 2023, 453,940 people had enrolled in the two weeks, compared to 310,471 people in 2020 – a 46 percent increase.
The review said the number of enrollments was "considerably higher" than the Electoral Commission's projections of 319,000 people and put "pressure on the processes that followed".
"There were not enough staff to process the volume of election-day enrolments in the time allowed for this to be completed."
The 2023 General Election was only the second general election where people had been able to enrol and vote on election day after an amendment to the Act in 2019 in order to increase voter participation and reduce the number of disallowed votes.
These votes are included in the special votes which is a provisional ballot used in special circumstances such as voters casting their vote outside of their electorate.
The review found the number of special votes were significantly higher than compared with the 2020 Election. There were 602,000 special votes cast in the 2023 General Election, 100,000 more than in 2020.
Special votes take about 10 times longer to process than ordinary votes as they require more intensive checks, the report said.
It said the significant number of special votes put further pressure on the team processing enrolments.
With the pressure to meet the official results deadline, the Electoral Commission instructed staff on the evening before the results were announced to resolve any outstanding apparent dual votes based on the best information they had at that time and to extract apparent dual votes.
"The instruction was not universally implemented, meaning that some apparent dual votes were included in the official results," the report said.
"The Electoral Commission was not aware that the instructions had not been followed, which meant that this issue was not considered as part of judicial recount processes. The Electoral Commission subsequently reviewed all electorate results and confirmed that, even if the dual votes had been extracted, this would not have changed the outcome in any electorate."
The report also found the delays in the official count shortened the time available to conduct final quality assurance checks – which failed to detect and prevent errors in the official results.
The report found quality assurance checks were "not well designed, understood, or done consistently across all electorates". It also found there was no check to confirm that all potential errors that were identified had been resolved.
The final quality assurance process which would usually take two days was completed in a few hours due to the pressure staff were on with last-minute voter enrolments.
The Auditor-General also noted there was a gap in the Electoral Commission's risk management, which was more focused on external risks rather than the effectiveness of the count process, and quality controls, particularly after election day. This meant that it did not take appropriate steps to manage the risks with the vote-counting process.
Recommendations
The review made recommendations aimed at strengthening the election count process which includes improvements to controls, quality assurance, recruitment, training, and risk management.
It noted that the Electoral Commission has limited flexibility with many aspects of election processes because they are set by legislation and are very manual in nature.
"Despite the expectation of accuracy in the count, a vote count process based on paper ballots and manual counting and data entry is likely to result in errors," Ryan said. "Improved assurance processes will help, but these too are not infallible when put under time and other pressures."
"Investments in systems and processes to improve accuracy are needed. Until then, our election processes will remain vulnerable to the kinds of human error that occurred in the 2023 election."
Ryan added his findings should not be taken as criticism of any individuals.
"The Electoral Commission staff we spoke to were committed to running an election with integrity, had worked long hours for extended periods, and were deeply disappointed that the errors occurred," Ryan said.
"The Commission has told me that it has accepted my recommendations and is working to make improvements."
