Papatoetoe poll: Police close case with no charges, after most Indian candidates win re-run
The four winners from last year's election for the Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board: (from left) Kushma Nair, Sandeep Saini, Kunal Bhalla and Paramjeet Singh.
Months after the Indian-origin ticket won the re-election, police now say they can't prove any electoral fraud.
Police have closed their investigation into allegations of electoral fraud in the 2025 Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board election without laying any charges.
Detective Inspector Shaun Vickers of Counties Manukau CIB told Awaaz on Friday police had completed their enquiries and found “insufficient evidence to proceed further”.
“All files have now been closed,” Vickers said.
"A thorough review was carried out into the complaints we received. Ultimately there was insufficient evidence to proceed further, when taking the Solicitor General’s Prosecution Guidelines into account."
The decision comes four months after Papatoetoe voters were asked to vote again, a re-run that returned three of the four Indian-origin candidates whose victories in the original election had been annulled.
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In the April re-election, Vi Hausia topped the poll with 2,788 votes. He was followed by Papatoetoe Otara Action Team (POAT) candidates Jeet Singh with 2,484, Sandeep Saini with 2,479 and Kushma Nair with 2,383.
Kunal Bhalla, the fourth POAT candidate who had won in 2025, finished fifth with 2,343 votes. Hausia, therefore, displaced just one member of the four-person Indian-origin ticket that had swept every Papatoetoe seat in the original election.
POAT spokesperson Kunal Bhalla told Awaaz the police action brings an important chapter in their electoral debut to a close.
"For many months, POAT and its members have lived under the shadow of allegations and public commentary which went far beyond what any court had actually found," he said.
"We maintained from the beginning that none of our candidates had been involved in any wrongdoing, and we placed our faith in the legal process and the independent institutions of this country."
The 2025 result had been challenged in the Manukau District Court by Hausia, who alleged voting papers had been stolen from residents and votes cast without their consent.
The court suspected irregularities involving 79 ballot papers and found there was sufficient evidence to suggest they indicated more widespread voter fraud. The election was declared void and a fresh vote ordered.
None of the four winning candidates was accused of committing the fraud. The four winners subsequently went to the Auckland High Court seeking judicial review of the District Court decision.
Justice Jane Anderson ruled on March 5 that the High Court did not have jurisdiction to review the lower court’s factual inquiry in this case.Her judgment also addressed commentary surrounding the Indian-origin candidates.
Anderson said portrayals of the district court decision as demonstrating “immigrant corruption”, or as finding that the “Indian candidates masterminded fraudulent votes”, were misleading and improper assessments of what the court had decided.
At the time, the High Court judgment noted that police enquiries into the electoral fraud were continuing. Those enquiries have now ended.
The sequence now leaves three clear outcomes from the Papatoetoe election controversy.
The district court annulled the original election over voting irregularities.
Three of the four Indian-origin winners were returned when voters went to the polls again.
Now, the police investigation has ended with no charges.
