With voting closing at the end of this week (Friday 8 October at 12 noon) Craccum asked 60 of our readers how they will be voting in the Auckland mayoral election, and which local issues are important to their decision.
Many students support Efeso Collins for Mayor but most are undecided
If it were up to Craccum readers, Efeso Collins would win the mayoral race by a landslide.
The 31.7% backing Efeso cited his “public transport focus”, endorsement from Green and Labour, and compassion for the community.
6.7% will be voting for centre-right front runner Wayne Brown, and 5% for Craig Lord. 5% also said they would vote for Viv Beck, who has since dropped out of the race, but is still on the ballot.
While Efeso is the most popular candidate among Craccum readers, even more (38.3%) said they were still undecided.
Those who elaborated on this said they needed to do more research before making a decision, and found information on candidates to be “inaccessible”, particularly to young people.
A 2019 Otago University survey suggested that a lack of information about candidates is the main reason young people do not vote in local government elections.
13.3% told Craccum they are not planning to vote at all.
According to Auckland Council data, only 30% of eligible 18 to 20 year olds voted in the 2019 local elections. This is compared to 61% of 76 to 80 year olds who voted.
Improving public transport, climate action, and alleviating the cost of living is the most important to students
When asked if the following local issues would influence their voting decision, improving public transport was chosen most by Craccum readers (55%), followed by climate action policy (50%), and alleviating the cost of living (40%).
Other issues that scored relatively highly in the survey were addressing crime rates (36.67%), inner-city homelessness (26.67%), and improving council spending and efficiency (21.67%).
Efeso Collins is the only candidate to state support for Three Waters reform, and 13.33% of Craccum readers say this is important to them. But almost as many of those we surveyed (11.67%) said they supported pushing against Three Waters reform.
*Survey responses were collected before Viv Beck’s withdrawal from the race.
