We Vote – 2025 Post-Election Summary


Impact

Candidates and community members praised We Vote for bridging communication gaps, strengthening civic participation, and making democracy more inclusive.  

“Great work contributing to democracy – well done!”
– Her Worship Sophie Barker, Elected Mayor of Dunedin

“Thank you all for doing this wonderful thing for our community. I’m so glad you are doing this and so proud of our youth for standing up to participate in democracy particularly at the moment when things aren’t looking wonderful internationally.”
– Kyle Parker, Elected Upper Harbour Local Board

“Please keep up your fantastic work! I’m very sure we will meet in the future. I wish you the very best ahead, because I know your initiative, resolve and community work whilst still in high school is just the beginning of exciting things from you for a very long time to come. I am looking forward to keeping in touch as you continue in your very bright paths ahead.”
– Benedict Ong, Elected Dunedin City Councillor

“This is such an awesome initiative. I’ve been using the Punjabi, Hindi and Chinese translations a lot. We have a wonderful, diverse community in the Innes Ward so this has been very useful indeed. Great for engagement and democracy overall.”
– Ali Jones, Candidate for Innes Ward

“A huge thank you for your great work with We Vote. I truly appreciate the effort you are putting into making voting more accessible and inclusive. Translating profiles into 11 languages is an incredible initiative and will make a real difference for our diverse communities.”
– Susan Diao, Elected Henderson-Massey Local Board

“Thank you both so much. This was a brilliant initiative and helped me so much reaching out to my Chinese, Indian and Samoan communities. Next time you should consider charging a fee. I would have happily paid for this service.”
– Linda Cooper, Elected Waitākere Licensing Trust


Overview

Over the 2025 local election period, We Vote has helped make voting more accessible and inclusive for multilingual communities across New Zealand.


With a team of native speakers, we trained an AI model to translate campaign content into 11 languages, offering this service free of charge to all candidates in four major cities: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin.


Key Achievements

  • A total of 135 candidates (or around one-third of all candidates in the four major cities) joined We Vote voluntarily
  • Each participating candidate received a personalised multilingual webpage to share with their constituents
  • Nearly half of these candidates were successfully elected, including two mayors and second-place contenders in two other cities

  • In just eight weeks, the We Vote website reached over 40,000 page views. Even the least-viewed language recorded more than 2,000 visits, and on election day alone, the site achieved 2,900+ views.


Looking Ahead

Building on the success of the 2025 local elections, we aim to grow We Vote into a sustainable civic-tech platform that supports not only elections but also broader community engagement, including local consultations, public initiatives, and civic education projects.

Our next steps include expanding to additional languages, improving AI translation accuracy for Māori terms and regional contexts, and partnering with councils, schools, and community groups.

As we begin our university studies next year, we also hope to share and expand We Vote internationally, adapting our model to support multilingual civic participation in other countries facing similar challenges.

To achieve this vision, we are seeking funding, collaborations, and volunteers (particularly bilingual students and community reviewers) to help scale our reach and maintain translation quality.

With greater visibility and support, We Vote will continue to grow as a youth-driven, socially impactful platform that empowers every voice and helps democracy speak in every language.