Nominations 

Nominations open on Friday 15 July and close on Friday 12 August 2022 at midday and must be lodged with the electoral officer or an electoral official. Do not leave lodgement until the last day because if there are any problems with the details provided there might be insufficient time to resolve them and you could miss out. A separate nomination paper is required for each position you wish to stand for.  

Should a nomination paper be lodged late on the morning nominations close, and be incorrectly completed or ineligible nominators are provided, there may be insufficient time to correct the situation and the nomination paper could be invalidated.  Nominations can be returned by mail but should these be received by the electoral officer or electoral official after the close of nominations, the nomination is invalid.  

You can get a nomination paper by:  

• visiting the Municipal Building Customer Services Desk, 260 Anglesea Street 
• Calling the electoral office on 0800 922 822. 
• Downloading them here: 
  • Mayor Nomination Form
  • East Ward Nomination Form
  • West Ward Nomination Form
  • Kirikiriroa Maaori Ward Nomination Form

To be eligible to stand for election, you must be:  

• a New Zealand citizen (by birth or naturalisation ceremony)  
• enrolled as a Parliamentary elector (anywhere in New Zealand) 
• nominated by two electors whose names appear on the electoral roll within the respective area that a candidate is standing for.  

Other requirements: 

• You or your spouse/partner must not have concerns or interests in contracts over $25,000 with the council. 
• If you are subject to a Court Order under section 31 of the Protection of Personal and Property Rights Act 1988, you should take legal advice. 
• If you are an employee of the council, you must resign before taking up your position as an elected member. Council employees may be required to take leave for campaigning prior to the election. 
• You may seek nomination for mayor and council but if elected as mayor and councillor, the mayoral position is taken and the councillor position is filled by the next highest polling candidate.  
• You may stand for the Hamilton City Council or the Waikato Regional Council, but not both. [Section 58 Local Electoral Act 2001].  
• A person cannot be an elected member if that person has a permanent court order, or that person will be suspended if that person has a temporary order. 

How much does it cost to lodge a nomination? 

It costs $200 incl. GST to lodge a nomination for each position you are standing for. The funds must be deposited to the electoral officer by close of nominations (midday 12 August 2022). 

This is refunded if you poll greater than 25% of the final quota as determined at the last iteration of STV elections.  Payment of the nomination deposit can be made by electronic bank transfer, eftpos or cash. Evidence of an electronic bank transfer will be required to accompany the nomination. Cheques are no longer accepted.  

Electronic bank payment details are:  

Account name: Independent Election Services Ltd Bank: ANZ  

Account number: 01 0102 0437238 00  

Particulars: your initials and surname  

Code: HCC  

Reference: Nomination  

Affiliations 

The nomination paper provides a space for you to include an affiliation. An affiliation is an endorsement by any organisation or group. 

If you’re not part of a political party or group you can list your affiliation as “Independent” or leave as blank (if left blank, nothing will show alongside your name on the voting document). 

If you choose to list a specific party affiliation, you should have authority to adopt the affiliation from the party, organisation or group concerned. The electoral officer may require a letter of consent from the party, organisation or group giving its consent for you to use the affiliation. 

Situations may arise where the same affiliation is given by two or more candidates, or a candidate provides multiple affiliations. If a candidate provides multiple affiliations, the electoral officer may require multiple endorsement or confirmation letters. Your affiliation should be 38 characters or less. No affiliation that might cause offence, or is likely to confuse or mislead electors, will be accepted by the electoral officer. 

Candidate profile statement 

You may provide the electoral officer with a candidate profile statement with your nomination. The statement can be up to 150 words, and should contain information about yourself, your policies, and your intentions if elected. You may also include a recent passport size photograph. The candidate profile statement must be true and accurate. The electoral officer is not required to verify or investigate any information included in this statement and it will be included with the voting document sent to each elector. If you choose not to supply a profile statement or photograph, then a message will appear in the profile booklet that a statement/photograph was not supplied. 

The image file to be supplied must meet the following criteria:  

• PNG format 
• black and white 
• 600 dpi 
• maximum file size 400kB 
• the image being 1300 pixels high and 2000 pixels wide.  

If a candidate profile statement is submitted in English and Maaori, or another language, the information contained in each language must be consistent with the information contained in the other language. The total statement including all languages must not exceed 150 words.  

If you are standing for more than one position, you are allowed a candidate profile statement for each position.  

Your candidate profile statement must– 

• state whether your principal place of residence is in the local government area for which you seek election (for example, either "My principal place of residence is in the West Ward area" or "My principal place of residence is not in the West Ward area"
• if you are standing for a position in the Kirikiriroa Maaori Ward, your principal place of residence is in the Kirikiriroa Maaori Ward if it is within the Hamilton city boundary (regardless of which roll you are enrolled on)
• specify each position you are standing for, if seeking election to multiple positions.  

These two statements are not counted as part of the 150-word limit. 

Candidate profile statements will be printed in plain text, with no formatting – bullet points, quotation marks etc will not appear.  

If you are commonly known in the community by a slightly different name (e.g. Edward Smith is commonly known as Ted Smith) and you’ve been known by this name for at least the last six months (to the satisfaction of the electoral officer), you can use your commonly known name on the voting document.  

If the electoral officer is not satisfied that your candidate profile statement complies with the requirements, the electoral office must: 

•  return your statement to you and state what the problem is.  
• specify the time you have (no less than three days) to amend and resubmit your statement   

If you don’t resubmit your amended profile statement, or do not complete your nomination paper correctly, it will be recorded that you did not provide a candidate statement. 

Return of nomination paper   

The candidate profile statement and colour photo are required to be submitted in hardcopy, not electronically (except where information in another language is provided). 

 If you can’t sign the nomination paper (e.g. absent overseas), a letter of consent signed by you is acceptable to attach to the nomination paper.  

All nomination material is required to be lodged together [Section 55(2)(f) Local Electoral Act 2001]: 

• nomination paper 
• candidate profile statement [if provided] 
• passport-size colour photo [if provided]  
• nomination deposit 
• evidence of NZ citizenship 
• letter endorsing affiliation [if applicable]. 

Completed nomination papers can be lodged at:  

The Elections Office  

Hamilton City Council  

Municipal Building Garden Place Hamilton 

or posted to:  

The Electoral Officer Hamilton City Council  

C/- Independent Election Services Ltd PO Box 5135  

Victoria Street West Auckland 1142  

Once lodged, a nomination paper is available for public inspection at the electoral office. Candidate details not identified as confidential (e.g. mobile phone number) are made available to the media, placed on websites etc.  

A receipt will be issued to acknowledge that a nomination has been received. This receipt does not constitute an acknowledgment that the nomination paper is in order. Once lodged, nomination papers are checked to ensure they are correct.  

Cancellation of Nomination 

You can withdraw your nomination up until the close of nominations (noon, Friday 12 August 2022). After the close of nominations, you can’t withdraw your nomination. [Section 69, Local Electoral Act 2001]. However, if you become incapacitated after the close of nominations but before the close of voting, you can apply to cancel your nomination.  ‘Incapacitated’ means that you are unlikely to be capable of performing the functions and duties of office if elected, because you are suffering from a serious illness or have sustained a serious injury. [Section 69(7) Local Electoral Act 2001]. An application for the cancellation of the nomination of a candidate must be made to the electoral officer by submitting a prescribed form (available from the electoral office) together with a medical certificate. 

For assistance with translations, contact: 

Pacific International Translations (NZ) Ltd  

Level 26, HSBC Tower, 188 Quay Street, Auckland 1010  

0508 872675  

info@pactranz.com 

pactranz.com