This morning was the last chance for Aucklanders to choose who leads the vision for Tāmaki Makaurau for the next three years.
Voting in the local elections has now closed.
While Aucklanders wait to find out who their next mayor will be, Vote Boxes are being emptied and taken away from 150 locations across the region to be delivered to the independent Election Services’ processing centre for sorting and counting.
“It’s an extremely busy time for us as a large number of votes have come in this morning. The queues have been snaking out the door of the Electoral Office building. Counting can’t actually start until midday, so up until this point we’ve been sorting and validating the data,” says Dale Ofsoske, Electoral Officer.
As at Friday 7 October, just under 30 per cent of Auckland’s eligible voters have cast their vote. With all the last-minute votes and a number of special votes still on their way in to be counted, will Auckland’s voter participation rate exceed last election’s 35 per cent turnout?
A total of 31,625 votes were collected from Vote Boxes and NZ Post on Friday 7 October. That’s 13,950 more than the same time in 2019’s local elections.
When do we get to see the results?
Later this afternoon progress results for all votes received (and counted) by last night, Friday 7 October, will be announced. Stay tuned to find out who’s leading the race for Auckland’s next mayor, councillors and local boards. Progress results will be available later today at voteauckland.co.nz/results2022
As soon as is practicable on Monday 10 October, the updated results including the votes from Saturday morning will be announced and will account for about 95 to 98 per cent of the votes. Due to the high volume of last-minute votes, the process is expected to take some time.
The declaration of final results will be announced on Saturday 15 October*, after special votes have been validated by the Electoral Commission.
* Update Thursday 13 October: Due to the large volume of special votes – the final count and official results will now be announced on Saturday 15 October. These were previously expected to be published on Friday 14 October. Read more.
For all things elections, visit voteauckland.co.nz
