Voting booths may return for local body elections.
That is a key recommendation from Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) to increase voter turnout.
The voter return in Waitaki for the 2022 local elections was 45.5%, or 8115 votes excluding specials out of a population reaching towards 25,000 — and in common with other areas it has been steadily dropping.
Waitaki District Council chief executive Alex Parmley said he welcomed exploring other options to encourage as many as possible to vote.
"I’m in favour of looking at whatever we can do that improves access to local democracy.
"If [voting booths] support more people in voting and having a say on who runs their district and how it’s run then that would be a positive thing."
Mr Parmley said a handful of Waitaki residents had lobbied for voting booths to return for the last election in 2022.
"A lot of them came to the HQ offices on the Saturday of the last local body elections to cast their votes physically."
As it was, conducting council elections via the postal system now "presented some challenges".
"When it was set up as a postal voting system, that was probably appropriate at the time.
"The reliance on the postal system has some challenges now, whereby we are getting an increase in delays in the postal system."
At the same time, the postal option should remain for those who wanted to use it, Mr Parmley said.
A return to voting booths is one of 20 draft recommendations made by the Electoral Reform Working Group to shape the future of local elections and increase voter turnout.
LGNZ Electoral Reform Group chairman Nick Smith said the current postal voting method had been previously identified as "a key issue" facing local elections and New Zealand could no longer continue with postal voting "as the status quo".
A move to voting booths with a two-week timeframe to vote could be the single-biggest and most fundamental change that could be made to lift voter turnout.
"We know that postal voting is becoming increasingly untenable as a voting method due to postal volumes collapsing and a range of other factors," Mr Smith said.
Mr Parmley said Waitaki would turn its focus to promoting the October elections once it had signed off its 2025-34 Long Term Plan process.
He encouraged residents to start considering whether they would like to stand.
