More on attempted electoral fraud

The Herald reports:

Four of the nine people standing for four seats in the Otara-Papatoetoe subdivision are Indian – Labour candidates Daljit Singh and Sukhdev Singh Hundal, and Citizens and Ratepayers candidates Avtar Hans and Narinder Kumar Singla.

Mr Gutry said candidates and campaign staff would be contacted as part of the inquiry. Yesterday, none of the four Indian candidates said they had been contacted by the police.

Daljit Singh yesterday said he knew of people who believed that because there was one Super City, they could vote anywhere.

People who may have unintentionally enrolled were being told to correct the matter with the Electoral Enrolment Centre, he said.

Unintentionally enrolled? Is this what it is about? Let us see what TV3 report:

Manjit Kaur and her husband Avtar have been living in Pukekohe for 10 years, so imagine their surprise when police turned up asking why she’d enrolled in the South Auckland suburb of Papatoetoe.

“We never lived at that address, and that handwriting was not belonging to us, ’cause we had not filled that form,” says Mr Kaur.

Ms Kaur signs her name in English, yet the police had a form with her date of birth and a signature in Punjabi.

Now this makes the alleged crimes even more serious. It is one thing to tell people to enrol at an address they don’t live at. That is bad enough. But to actually forge their signature on an enrolment form and re-enrol them against their wishes is even more serious.

Quite a mystery over who could have done this.

“We’ve executed a number of search warrants within the Papatoetoe area, residential and commercial properties,” says Det Insp Mark Gutry.

One of the properties searched was the real estate office where Labour candidate Daljit Singh works. He said today police had not contacted him.

“What we’re doing at present is investigating the enrolments,” says Mr Gutry. “As part of that process we are going to end up speaking to candidates right throughout the Papatoetoe area.”

Another address visited was Indo Spice World, where coincidentally today a support vehicle for Mr Singh was parked at his office next door.

What an absolute coincidence.