Data Supply

A Local Authority file is generated in the event of a poll, survey, by-election or Triennial election, and sent in electronic format to the Local Council who requested it. The request for electoral data must be made on the application form, which can be found at the bottom of this page.

This does not include electors who are on the Unpublished Roll, these people are contacted by EEC to inform them of an electoral event taking place.

Notes:

• Each Local Authority Person Extract file will be in a Tilde-delimited (~) DOS format.
• The Extract file will be supplied to a Local Council either via e-mail or made available for secure download, depending on the file size.
• If the requested political area for a Local Authority Person Extract is a Local Authority, then people with an Unknown Meshblock 194 status will be included as part of this file.
• If the requested political area for a Local Authority Person Extract is of a lower level (such as a Ward or Community Board), then an additional Meshblock Unknown file will be provided, which contains people with an Unknown Meshblock 194 status for the Local Authority that this political area is part of.
• People who have been allocated an Unknown Meshblock 194 status will not be allocated voting rights - it will be up to the appropriate Electoral Officer to allocate these rights.

For more information about the file format, please view the latest data specification document here.

By Elections

On announcement of a by-election the Electoral Officer is required to submit an application form detailing the Roll closure dates and all other details of the by-election to EEC. The data application should be submitted at least 48 hours prior to preliminary data being required.

If only one nomination is received, the Electoral Officer should inform EEC to ensure no further data or correspondence is released.
This data is provided free of charge.

Referendums and Polls

Once it has been decided that a Referendum or Poll is required an application form needs to be submitted to EEC. Within this or as a separate item of correspondence should be a short summary of what the Referendum/Poll hopes to determine.

If the Referendum/Poll is required by legislation then this data is provided free of charge. However if this event is not determined to be required by legislation then the data may be provided at a fee of $497.80.

Local Authority Candidates

Candidates standing in Local body elections may apply for their own copy of the Roll, they simply need to complete the application form and forward back to EEC for consideration.

Provided the candidate is listed by the Local Authority as a candidate, this data may be provided at a cost of $497.80.

Data Delivery

All electoral information that is requested can be sent within 48 hours or on any requested date.

Information will either be sent via email (contained in an encrypted .zip file) or free of charge on CD via CourierPost.
Note: CD option will not be available for the 2010 Triennial Elections, a secure download option will be available for larger files.
Information can be supplied direct to a computer service bureau but the original request must be made by the local council concerned.

Resolution of Returned Electoral Mail

Contained in the Local Authority file is a Reference_ID field, a unique number allocated by EEC to all persons in the file.

The purpose of this field is to allow Local Authorities to identify to EEC all people whose voting papers have been returned as Gone No Address (GNA). EEC will then challenge these electors, removing them from the electoral roll if their details are deemed to be outdated. This will help to ensure that the details of electors on the electoral roll are kept up-to-date.

The GNA actioning process can be broken down into the following stages:

1. Upon request, a Local Authority file is generated by EEC and sent to the Local Authority.
2. The Local Authority generates voting papers from this file, which should include the Reference_ID value, as this field will need to recorded if the letter is returned as GNA (as explained below). These papers are mailed out to electors by the Local Authority.
3. Once the voting period has finished, the Reference_IDs shown on all the voting papers returned to the Local Authority as GNA are collated into a GNA file, and returned to EEC for their action. The format of this file is detailed below.
4. EEC uses the GNA file to establish the identity of each elector based on their Reference_ID. EEC then verifies that these electors have not updated their electoral details after the Extract file was sent to the Local Authority;
5. Registrar of Electors will then send electors with a potentially outdated address an Enrolment Review letter. If there is no response to this letter within a 14-day period, or if the letter is returned to the Registrar of Electors as GNA, the elector is removed from the electoral roll. If a response to the Enrolment Review letter is received from an elector, then the elector remains on the electoral roll.

Local Authorities actioning voting papers returned to them as GNA will need to be able to record the Reference_ID for the person whose voting papers were returned. These Reference_IDs will then be supplied to EEC.

It is suggested that for ease of operation, the Reference_ID number be placed above the electors name so that it is displayed in the window envelope being sent to the elector - this field can then be recorded without the envelope being opened.

Format of GNA file for EEC

Once all the Reference_IDs for people whose voting papers were returned as GNA are collated, the file will need to be provided to EEC in a consistent format.

• The file should be a DOS format text file, with one Reference_ID value shown per line.

  EG:

  1001

  4531

  4836

  13485

  38853

• The name of this file to be returned to EEC will be:

  GNA_council_name.txt

  EG: GNA_Napier_City_Council.txt

Download Application Form

Note: These application forms are not applicable for 2010 Triennial Elections.

PDF Format
Local Authority Data Application Form

Microsoft Word Format
Local Authority Data Application Form