Triennial elections for all 74 cities, districts, twelve regional councils and all district health boards in New Zealand were held on 9 October 2004. Most councils were elected using the first-past-the-post method, but ten (of which Wellington City was the largest) were elected using the single transferable vote (STV) method. It was the first time that the STV method was available; the change came through successful lobbying by Rod Donald.^[1]

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2004 New Zealand local elections

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Elections for the 21 district health boards (DHBs) were first held alongside the 2001 local elections. The government had hoped to use the STV voting method from the start but this could not be achieved and in 2001, first-past-the-post voting (FPP) was used based on local wards.^[2] For the 2004 elections, the STV method was used. From 2004 onwards, DHB candidates have been elected at large (i.e. across the whole voting area).^[3]

Apart from the district health boards, ten district or city councils used the STV method for the 2004 local elections: Kaipara, Papakura, Matamata-Piako, Thames-Coromandel, Kāpiti Coast, Porirua, Wellington, Marlborough, Dunedin, and the Chatham Islands.^[4]

A private company, elections.com and its subsidiary Datamail, had been engaged by seven councils, eighteen DHBs, and one licensing trust with operating the STV elections. During the weekend of the elections, it was discovered that when voting papers were transferred to computer-readable data, not all data were correctly recorded. The Office of the Auditor-General became involved and tasked with confirming the election results. The final results for these elections became available in early November, nearly one month after the local election. The government initiated a select committee inquiry.^[5]

• 2004 Wellington local elections