Strong flag response

Tauranga and Bay of Plenty residents voted in higher numbers than most of New Zealand for the flag referendum

In the first flag referendum, Tauranga had a voter turn out of 55.89 per cent, with 26,760 valid votes, and the Bay of Plenty had an even higher turnout of 56.95 per cent and 26,847 valid votes.

The national average was a 48.16 per cent voter turn out with a total of 1,524,566 valid votes across the country.

Despite the high turn out a Bay of Plenty Times online poll indicated Tauranga residents supported keeping the old New Zealand flag.

Almost 400 people voted in the poll after the winning flag design from the first referendum was announced on Friday.

Of the 396 people who had voted as at 4.30pm yesterday, 37.38 per cent would be voting for a new national flag, Kyle Lockwood's Silver Fern (Black, White and Blue).

However, the majority of people, 59.1 per cent, were set to vote in the second referendum to retain the current flag, which received 234 votes.

Fourteen people said they would not be voting.

The lowest general electorate voter turn out for the first referendum was Mangere with only 24.02 per cent, 9986 people, voting.

Waimakariri in the South Island was the top voter turn out across the country at 58.22 per cent, 26,402 people voting.

The Silver Fern (Black, White and Blue) won in the fourth round of preliminary voting results, which gave it 50.53 per cent of the vote.

In second place the Silver Fern (Red, White and Blue), which came out on top in the first three rounds of the preferential vote, but lost out on the last round. It polled 49.47 per cent.

However, due to the winner percentage being so tight, the final results which are released today could still put Silver Fern (Red, White and Blue) on top.