[3] At the 2004 New Zealand local elections, Ball stood and won for the position of Mayor of Franklin.

[6] In a 2020 interview, a decade after the merger, Ball said that while there was no point going back to the multi-council structure, he believed a review of the supercity was needed, and that vital infrastructure in his region had been passed up in favour of upgrades in Auckland's CBD.

[7] Mark Ball leads the Heartland New Zealand Party,[1] which was registered with the Electoral Commission in August 2020.

[8] Heartland is a rural-based party that opposes the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, the Paris Agreement, and attempts to limit the environmental impacts of agriculture.

[9] Ball contested the 2020 New Zealand general election for Heartland and was ranked first on its party list of five.