Molineaux, Julienne Andrea2025-04-012025-04-012023-07-19Regional and Federal Studies, ISSN: 1359-7566 (Print); 1743-9434 (Online), Taylor and Francis Group, 35(1), 119-133. doi: 10.1080/13597566.2023.22342951359-75661743-9434http://hdl.handle.net/10292/18978The election report describes the organization of local government and analyses the results of the 2019 local elections in Aotearoa New Zealand (the bilingual Māori-English name for New Zealand). The report reveals a trend of declining turnout. Districts with higher numbers of electors and those with lower numbers of elected representatives per capita had the lowest turnout. Apart from three large cities, Auckland, Christchurch and the capital city Wellington, most council and mayoral candidates do not stand for a political party or on a local ticket. As the report highlights, 2019 did see an increase in the number of women elected to positions on councils.© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/4408 Political Science44 Human Society1605 Policy and Administration1606 Political SciencePolitical Science & Public Administration4407 Policy and administration4408 Political scienceTurnoutLocal government electionsRepresentationElectoral competitionJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1080/13597566.2023.2234295