Hausia was deputy chair of the board in the 2022-2025 term, but lost his seat in the recent election, along with the other sitting members seeking re-election to the Papatoetoe subdivision of the board.
All four seats in the subdivision were won by members of a new group, the Papatoetoe Action Team. None of the successful candidates – Kunal Bhalla, Kushma Nair, Sandeep Saini and Paramjeet Singh – have any previous political experience in New Zealand.
As the Herald has previously reported, Election Services referred allegations of voting irregularities in the board area to the police last month.
General manager Dale Ofsoske confirmed to the Herald this week it had now referred 16 such complaints. The matter is being handled by Detective Shaun Vickers of Counties-Manukau CIB and no other comment has been forthcoming.
The Action Team’s candidates have been joined on the board by three members from the Ōtara subdivision. All have been sworn in and the board has elected Nair as chair and Singh as his deputy.
Hausia is a member of the Labour Party and the board has previously been dominated by Labour members. But in previous years self-declared “centre-right independents” have also won selection.
Since the election, complaints about the result from across the political spectrum have been published on social media.
Much of the focus of these complaints is on the voting numbers. Hausia’s petition alleges: “Statistics and turnout anomalies [were] inconstant with historic and current voting patterns in Papatoetoe.”
It also alleges there were “irregularities in the handling and verification of special and duplicate votes, … an unprecedented surge in special voting [and] discrepancies and inaccuracies in the list of persons from whom voting documents were received”.
There are three issues related to the voting numbers.
The first is that the total votes for the local board rose in Papatoetoe while they fell everywhere else.
The Papatoetoe subdivision of the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board was the only area in Auckland where voting numbers rose in this year’s election. Graphic / Supplied
In nearby Ōtara and Ōtāhuhu the turnout dropped by 1 percentage point and 2.2 percentage points respectively, compared to the previous election. But in Papatoetoe it rose by 7.1 points. The citywide average was a drop of 6.7 points.
The second is where the extra votes went. The support for most candidates in 2025 was similar to the support they had in 2022. Hausia, for example, saw his 3117 votes in 2022 rise to 3254 this year.
Another candidate, the centre-right Peter Dons, saw his support go a little the other way, from 2112 to 1794.
But the four Action Team candidates all received at least 4500 votes. That’s far more than everyone else.
Hausia’s 3117 votes were enough to get him elected in 2022, but even though he increased his vote this time, he didn’t even come close to winning a seat.
“You don’t need to be a data scientist to know when something fishy is going on,” says Hausia. He calls the Papatoetoe vote “the clear outlier” in the city.
Ōtara-Papatoetoe is the local board where former MP and councillor Fa’anana Efeso Collins started his political career. His widow Fia Collins has commented on the election on Facebook.
“I can’t help but find these results very suspicious,” she says. “Nothing about these results is consistent with historical voting trends nor current trends across Auckland. It’s also strange that newcomers have taken all four seats.”
The Action Team doesn’t accept this. They say they did well because they ran a good campaign.
Members of the Papatoetoe-Ōtara Action Team, Kunal Bhalla, Kushma Nair, Sandeep Saini and Paramjeet Singh. Photo / Supplied
Speaking for the group, Bhalla says, “our campaign placed considerable emphasis on community outreach, door-to-door engagement and voter education, encouraging residents to enrol and take part in local elections.
“We believe this proactive approach, combined with Auckland Council’s broader initiatives to make voting more accessible, played a major role in the increased participation.”
The third numerical factor relates to special votes.
Special votes are those cast away from the area, or at the end of the voting period or for some other special reason.
They include votes cast by anyone who doesn’t receive their voting papers in the mail and applies for new papers.
One reason for this is to allow election organisers to check for fraud. Are you voting twice? Has someone else stolen your original voting papers, to vote for you?
Where they find two sets of voting papers under one name, they count the special vote and discard the ordinary one.
Papatoetoe voter Esther Tapuaki says she went through this process. Her original voting papers didn’t arrive, so on September 24 she applied for a special voting pack, which she received on September 30.
She posted her special vote and on October 8 she contacted Election Services to check all was in order. They “confirmed I had allegedly voted with my original voting papers. But I clearly did not do this”.
It appeared the original papers had been stolen and fraudulently used. The fraudulent vote cast in Tapuaki’s name was discarded.
Because special votes add to the total votes cast, it’s common for candidates’ final tallies to rise.
But after the specials were counted in Papatoetoe, the final tallies for all the Action Team members went down. The numbers weren’t large: the four candidates lost 33, 38, 47 and 49 votes. But the phenomenon is unusual.
Dons, a self-described “centre-right independent” candidate in the election, says it appears that “when many people complained that they had not received their voting papers in the mail, a small number went to the trouble of requesting replacement ones to be sent out. Maybe 40 to 50 voters”.
As the election team cross-checked with other voting papers, Dons suspects they found the “40-50 voters” already had votes recorded in favour of the Action Team, likely on stolen forms.
He believes election officials then cancelled those votes and applied the replacement special voting paper, “hence the reduction in final votes for the ‘fab four’”.
Hausia says, “with widespread reports of electors not receiving their voting papers yet appearing as ‘voted’ on the system, alongside claims of postal ballot irregularities, there are genuine concerns about the integrity and reliability of the voting process”.
As reported earlier, the initial complaint referred by Ofsoske to the police included allegations of “severe electoral malpractice”, including “nightly vote stealing by a team of young boys”, voters being instructed how to vote “inside the polling booths”, and other instances of voters “in places like temples and churches” being told how to vote.
The allegations refer to “standover tactics” during meetings at the Sikh temple Gurudwara Sri Dashmesh Darbar in Papatoetoe, on September 28 and October 5.
Bhalla said last month the Action Team “categorically deny any involvement in unlawful or unethical conduct”.
This week, he added, “at no stage did any member of our team interfere with voting papers, instruct voters within polling locations or places of worship, or misuse personal data. We have always upheld the values of honesty and accountability, and we welcome proper scrutiny of our campaign activities”.
He also says, “I can only emphasize that we have not been presented with any credible evidence whatsoever to support the claims you mention”.
Although the police have told the Herald they are investigating, Bhalla says, “no agency has contacted me or the Papatoetoe-Ōtara Action Team in relation to these accusations, and we are not aware of any verified findings”.
The Herald asked the police about this. “Enquiries remain ongoing and we are working through the complaints,” a spokesperson said. “We will be in contact with people in due course.”
He says many of the “rumours and speculation” are “driven by disappointment over the election result”.
“We remain confident that the judicial process regarding the petition will run its proper course.”
An editorial in the Indian Weekender last month also put its faith in the judicial process. “While the community naturally wants answers, it must also remain fair,” it said.
“The smarter approach is to trust and follow due process, ensuring that allegations are properly investigated and judged fairly, rather than rushing to conclusions.”
Bhalla says, “we will continue focusing on the work the community has elected us to do, and we will not be drawn into speculation or narratives that distract from that responsibility.”
Hausia says, “our postal ballot voting system is a fragile process; it is easy to tamper with and difficult to ensure accountability … My intention is to protect and strengthen our local democracy. It is in the best interest of all our communities”.
He says his petition has been reviewed by the district court, which “found cause to proceed to a hearing”.
The presentation on Friday in the Manukau District Court is expected to be largely procedural, with the substantial hearing to come on December 8.
Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues, with a focus on Auckland. He joined the Herald in 2018.