Voters assured after mailout error

Auckland City Council electoral officer Dale Ofsoske wishes to assure the public that any voters who received duplicate voting documents will only be able to vote once.

Up to 2000 electors in the Eden-Albert ward of Auckland City Council may have received two sets of voting documents at the weekend.

The mailout error followed the reprinting of the candidate booklet for the Eden-Albert ward.

Mr Ofsoske says the barcoded vote counting system will stop any voters using the error to their advantage.

"If an elector returns a second voting document, our system will not permit it. We will accept the first voting document that is returned and reject the second."

Mr Ofsoske asked voters who had received two voting packs to destroy one of the packs and return one set of voting documents.

"It's important that voters simply complete any one of their voting documents and get it in the post by 11 October."

Mr Ofsoske said the Eden-Albert ward booklet had been reprinted because a printing error obscured the face of one of the candidates.

"As up to 60 per cent of the booklets were affected, Datamail decided to reprint the booklet because it would have been unfair to the candidate concerned.

"Datamail had advised that even though they checked that all of the original defect Eden-Albert ward mailers had been removed for destruction, it now appears that probably up to 2000 may have been sent."