October 07, 2014
Harawira wants voting blocks removed
Mana leader Hone Harawira says he doesn’t expect a judicial recount in Te Tai Tokerau will change the election result, but he wants some scrutiny of the way voters were treated.
Despite picking up 1648 of the 3476 special votes cast, Mr Harawira ended the contest 739 votes behind Labour’s Kelvin Davis.
He says he first raised the issue of treatment of Maori voters in the 2008 election, escalated it with a complaint to the Electoral Commission in 2011, and now wants the judicial recount to address it.
"Regardless of the election result, and I don't expect it to change, every vote deserves to be properly counted. What we have found in the past month or so is a horror story. Polling booths without Maori roll voting papers. I'm not talking polling booths in the middle of Remuera, I'm talking a polling booth in Kaikohe, the only booth doing early voting, opened without any Maori roll voting papers in probably the biggest Maori town in the whole of Tai Tokerau," he says.
Hone Harawira says Maori people weren’t offered assistance to vote, they were turned away without being offered a special vote if their name wasn’t on the electoral roll, they were told to go to other towns to vote, or they were asked to wait while general voters were dealt with first.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH HONE HARAWIRA CLICK ON THE LINK
https://secure.zeald.com/uma/play_podcast?podlink=MjI4ODI=
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