There were over 3,000 candidates standing in local body elections across Aotearoa this year. With the election results recently announced, FACT Aotearoa found that just 18% of the over 200 candidates we had identified as conspiracy theorists or disinformation-aligned have been elected to councils. This represents 38 successful candidates of concern, mainly in rural areas such as Southland.
We started off by asking for tips from the public. The response was huge and we built a list of around 400 candidates. It was cut down to just over 200 after our team of volunteers eliminated candidates where we found little evidence, no evidence or counter-evidence of conspiracy theorist beliefs. Even so, just 38 seems like a rejection, especially since the news media did not cover some of their races. It is also a tiny proportion of the total number of people who ran for election.
FACT thinks the low number of conspiracy theorist candidates elected is a good result for democracy. Our work, and the work of journalists, has exposed many undeclared beliefs. We hope it was useful for voters. When we look at well-covered races like Christchurch City Council, we think that strong reporting and intense scrutiny did make a difference.
We were alarmed that groups like Voices for Freedom encouraged candidates from their support base to stand, asking them not to openly affiliate with the group and providing coaching resources to increase their chances of being elected. A suggestion that the goal of candidates should be to become ungovernable, rather than to represent a different view, was particularly concerning. We believe this was the first time there was a concerted effort to have conspiracy-aligned candidates elected to local government.
Our concern all along has been about candidates not being upfront about their true beliefs. These beliefs included views that COVID is a hoax, and the need for public trials and deaths of government, public servants and journalists for crimes against humanity.
FACT saw there was a gap between what candidates believed, and what voters knew about the candidates. We’ve tried to fill that gap, by researching publicly available content to determine candidates’ true alignments.
As far as we know, this kind of work on elections in Aotearoa has not been done before. If nothing else we have established a baseline for future elections.
FACT has put in hundreds of hours of research to find candidates’ true alliances. We started with tips we received from the public, and where possible we’ve checked existing reporting or the candidates’ own posts and words to confirm where they actually sit. From there it’s been the work of the news media to put questions directly to those concerned. Journalists mostly have done a great job in covering these people. This really is journalism at its best, acting to serve the interests of truth, transparency and democracy.
All this work, from FACT volunteers and from the news media, is based on the information many people around the country sent us. We thank you all and we tried our best to use it and get it out there. We think it worked.
