Video transcript: General Election 2023: Independent review of counting errors
Title: General Election 2023: Independent review of counting errors
The Office of the Auditor-General has carried out an independent review of vote counting errors during the 2023 General Election.
After the election, some errors in the official results were identified and corrected by the Electoral Commission.
While the errors did not change the candidate or party vote outcomes in any electorates, it’s essential that the public has trust and confidence in the integrity of the election process and the official election results.
We wanted to understand how and why the errors happened.
We looked at the controls in place and why they did not work to detect or prevent the errors, and how the Electoral Commission responded when errors were brought to its attention and what its analysis found.
Our review also considered the governance arrangements for the election and how risks associated with the election were managed.
We found that the Commission’s quality assurance processes were ineffective and were not done properly. Processes were not well understood and, in some cases, were either not done or were not done with the rigour they required. National Office quality assurance processes were not fully documented, were not effectively designed and there was no check to confirm that all potential errors that were identified had been resolved. A final quality assurance process that would usually take two days was completed in a few hours, under extreme pressure, on the day the official result was announced.
Unexpected events put pressure on processes and people. Significantly more people than expected enrolled to vote in the two weeks leading up to the election and there were more special votes. As a result, the Electoral Commission was under-resourced to respond to these events, or to recognise and address associated risks.
We also saw a gap in the Electoral Commission’s risk management. It was more weighted towards external risks and did not focus on the effectiveness of the count process and quality controls in the post-election period. This meant that appropriate steps were not taken to manage the risks associated with the vote counting process.
We’ve made several recommendations aimed at strengthening election count processes. These include improvements to controls, quality assurance, recruitment, training, and risk management.
Visit oag.parliament.nz to read our report.
Title: Read our report at oag.parliament.nz