{"id":267633,"date":"2026-02-04T18:49:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/267633\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T18:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:49:09","slug":"tokelau-heads-to-the-polls-after-storm-delays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/267633\/","title":{"rendered":"Tokelau heads to the polls after storm delays"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/4JU3Z8S_622383971_1549436073544909_1812268209312787029_n_jpg.jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"1400\" alt=\"2026 Tokelau general election ballot papers.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n2026 Tokelau general election ballot papers.<br \/>\nPhoto: Facebook \/ Government of Tokelau\n<\/p>\n<p>Polling stations will open in Tokelau at 9am (NZT) on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The election was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/international\/pacific-news\/585173\/severe-weather-delays-2026-tokelau-general-election\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">postponed last month<\/a> after severe weather conditions delayed the ferry carrying the ballot boxes.<\/p>\n<p>Voting will take place on Nukunonu, Atafu, Fakaofo, and in Apia for Tokelauans living in Samoa.<\/p>\n<p>More than 1600 people live in the New Zealand realm nation.<\/p>\n<p>The voting age in Tokelau is 18 and those who want to run enter parliament (General Fono) must be at least 35 years of age, be a holder of a current New Zealand passport, and have lived in Tokelau for at least 2 years immediately preceding the election, according to territory&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.paclii.org\/tk\/legis\/consol_act_2016\/ner2013241.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">election rules<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This year marks 100 year since Tokelau became a territory of New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2026 Tokelau general election ballot papers. Photo: Facebook \/ Government of Tokelau Polling stations will open in Tokelau&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-267633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}