Auckland Council has reported more than 64,000 votes were returned on Saturday morning, taking the city’s local election participation rate to 35%, up from 31% a day earlier.
Preliminary results, which now account for about 97% of votes, confirm Wayne Brown remains the provisionally elected mayor of Tāmaki Makaurau.
Mr Brown (pictured) is in front with 180,173 votes, now ahead of Efeso Collins by 57,753 votes, Council said in a statement.
Auckland Council Chief Executive, Jim Stabback welcomed Mr Brown to Te Wharau o Tāmaki – Auckland House on Monday morning.
“We’ll be spending the next few days getting to know the new Mayor and beginning a round of briefings,” said Mr Stabback.
“On behalf of the Auckland Council whānau, we welcome the Mayor and all of the incoming councillors and local board members to the new term and look forward to working with them, for Tāmaki Makaurau, for the next three years,” he said.
Meanwhile, Auckland Council’s Manager Governance Services, Rose Leonard said the number of last-minute votes that came in on Saturday morning was significant.
“And we’re now seeing a few changes to candidates who were leading in the progress results announced shortly after the close of voting,” she said.
With the large volume of last-minute votes added to the count, there are now variations to the results for candidates who were marginally leading in the progress results, Ms Leonard said.
Today’s preliminary results show:
In Albert-Eden-Puketāpapa, Julie Fairey is now leading for the councillor position with 16,602 votes – overtaking Will McKenzie by 551 votes. And Whau Councillor candidate Kerrin Leoni is now in front of Tracy Mulholland by 278 votes.
The full list of preliminary results is published here: voteauckland.co.nz/results2022
Electoral Officer from Independent Election Services, Dale Ofsoske says, “Given the large volume of special votes that came in, we’ve added extra resource to process and count these. The addition of validated special votes could again change the final count to be announced on Friday.”
The declaration of the official results, which will confirm all newly elected members of the council, will be announced on Friday 14 October.
