Editorial: Get ready for an exciting election weekend

Andrew Austin, Editor of Hawke's Bay Today.

It is amazing that this crazy election campaign - certainly the most volatile in recent New Zealand history - comes to an end at midnight today and those who have not voted already, finally get their chance to tick the boxes.

And then it is a case of sitting back and waiting to see which candidates and which parties are the winners and who does not quite make it.

All the experts out there are predicting that it will be a close one and I am sure there will be a few upsets here and there - if the past few weeks are anything to go by.

I am certainly not going to tell you who to vote for - that is entirely your decision. But I am going to encourage you to exercise your democratic right and vote. All I would ask you is that you think about what you want and who you think, at a candidate and party vote level, best represents what you believe.

It is your chance to decide what the government looks like after the election and who your local members of Parliament are. If you don't vote then you cannot complain if someone or party you don't like gets in.

It is certainly going to be an exciting weekend and Hawke's Bay Today plans to give you full coverage.

We will have the local results as they land tomorrow night on our website, hbtoday.co.nz, and our Facebook page and Twitter feed @HawkesBayToday.

Be sure to keep a lookout because we will have all the breaking news of the results from our four local electorates, Napier, Tukituki, Ikaroa-Rawhiti and Wairarapa, as well as the important interviews, videos and photographs. We will be reporting on all the updates as they happen.

Our coverage does not end there. Monday's newspaper will be a bumper election special. We will have full interviews with all the local candidates, all the results and analysis of where the electorates were won and lost.