Some conferences ago it was agreed that the next Wellington Local election would be conducted electronically as a trial. The Wellington Local was elected without need of an election and therefore we have not been able to trial electronic voting.

The Auckland Local has had to conduct a series of elections due to the number of candidates for all positions. The elections for Secretary, President and Vice President have been conducted in the traditional manner and as some candidates had nominated for all positions those elections were held separately. There is now an election for the 10 Auckland Local Committee positions and the Northern Branch Returning Officer requested permission to conduct the election for the Local Committee electronically.

The National Committee has agreed and the Conference has endorsed the electronic voting trial being held for the Auckland Local Committee election. The practicalities will be conducted by the NZPFU webmaster and with the assistance of Wellington Local member Mike Thomason with the Northern Branch Returning Officer conducting his duties. This will be conducted as a trial and the webmaster will be able to feed back any issues, improvements or what went well and we can then review the election process from there.

The electronic voting for the Auckland Local Committee election was launched tonight and will close at 1800hrs Monday, 29 July 2019.

A specific electronic voting platform has been established. It will maintain all confidentiality of any vote. The only information available to the webmaster will be whether the member has voted. It will not show who the member voted for.

Only Auckland Local members are eligible as with any other Local election. The process for voting is as follows.

• The Auckland Local members will receive an email sent to their FENZ email address. The senders name is NZPFU and the email originates from bigpulse.com.
• To access the election, click the secure link provided in the email;
  Select up to 10 candidates by clicking the checkbox against a candidates name;
  You can view a candidates biography if they have provided one;
  Finally, click the "Proceed to vote confirm page"
• If you do not receive the email, or have any issues accessing the link please contact the webmaster directly via webmaster@nzpfu.org.nz