United Future submits 500 members

The Herald reports:

Independent MP Peter Dunne will submit 500 individually signed declarations from members in an effort to register the United Future party today. …

He said he was disappointed the commission would not take six to eight weeks to check the validity of the members’ forms.

“Even if it was to check every one of the memberships, not just a sample, it would not be unrealistic to expect the process to be completed within five working days,” Mr Dunne said.

The time frame just seems unusually long. It takes around a minute to check a name and address against the electoral roll. I know this from experience as years ago one of my jobs was to check that all of National’s candidates were actually on the electoral roll, before we submitted the nominations forms!

I think five working days should be more than enough to verify some or all of the names.