New Tool: One Dataset for Every Local Election Candidate in Aotearoa

I’ve just launched a new tool on The Progress Report that compiles candidate information from every local council election in Aotearoa into a single, searchable, filterable table.

Local elections in New Zealand are fragmented. That’s not by accident. Local elections in Aotearoa are mostly run by private providers, not the Electoral Commission. Each council publishes candidate information in different formats — sometimes PDFs, sometimes poorly structured web pages, sometimes behind click-through menus. The result? An information landscape that’s fragmented, inconsistent, and opaque.

This new feature brings it all together. You can:

• Filter candidates by council, position, or affiliation
• Search by name or keyword
• View an interactive chart showing the most common affiliations (excluding independents for clarity)

I’ve done our best to standardise the data — including grouping all ACT candidates under “ACT Local” and excluding duplicates — but if you spot something that needs fixing or updating, we’d love to hear from you. Just drop a line to [email protected].

👉 Check out the Local Candidates Tool here