East Auckland residents will soon have an idea who’s going to serve as the city’s next mayor as well as represent the Howick ward on Auckland Council’s governing body and on the Howick Local Board for the next three years.
Voting closed in this year’s local elections at midday today.
Ballot boxes were closed and emptied and taken from 150 locations across the city to the Independent Election Services’ processing centre for sorting and counting.
The council says 31,625 votes were collected from vote boxes and NZ Post on October 7.
That’s 13,950 more than at the same time in 2019’s local elections.
And as of yesterday, just under 30 per cent of Auckland’s eligible voters have cast a vote.
With the last-minute votes and a number of special votes still on their way to be counted, it’s not yet known if the city’s voter participation rate will eventually exceed the 35 per cent voter turnout seen in 2019.
“It’s an extremely busy time for us as a large number of votes have come in this morning,” Electoral Officer Dale Ofsoske said this morning.
“The queues have been snaking out the door of the Electoral Office building in central Auckland.
“Counting can’t begin until midday, so up until this point we’ve been sorting and validating the data.”
Progress results for all votes received and counted as of last night, October 7, will be announced later this afternoon.
People can keep up to date with the results online at www.voteauckland.co.nz/2022results.
The Times will be reporting on the results for the race to replace outgoing mayor Phil Goff as well as for the two Howick ward seats on the council’s governing body and on the nine people chosen to serve on the Howick Local Board.
Preliminary results from the elections are expected to be announced on October 10 and will account for 95-98 per cent of the votes cast.
The declaration of official results will be announced on October 14 after the Electoral Commission has validated the special votes.
