NZ Electoral Commission Faces Scrutiny Over Vote Counting Mistakes in 2023 Election

New Zealand's Auditor-General John Ryan is to carry out a review into the quality assurance processes used in the vote count during the country's 2023 general election, following errors in the counting of votes in several electorates.

Three voting places had incorrectly allocated party votes, another 15 voting places misallocated candidate votes, one electorate entered special votes incorrectly, five voting places entered voting data for the incorrect day, and one electorate failed to count votes in a ballot box during the official count.

Although the errors had no effect on the election results, the Electoral Commission expects its quality assurance processes to identify and correct such errors.

The review will examine why the errors occurred, what quality assurance policies were in place, how effectively these were implemented and what improvements can be made.

It is expected to be completed by April 2024.