Yule: Slow voter turnout not a cause for concern

Mayor Lawrence Yule believes his constituency's voting figures will spike over the next few days. Photo / File

Hastings District Mayor Lawrence Yule is unperturbed by his electorate's low voting figures.

In fact, he is quietly confident his constituency will come out in droves over the next few days to close the gap on the other three districts.

"It has traditionally always been slow voting," he said. "If you look at the last [local government] election, a lot of votes came in over the last four days.

"I have spoken to many people today who are only just voting now.

"So I don't really know but I expect the vote to go up from where it is now as it has historically done."

Over the past 11 voting days, weekends have not been included by Electionz.com in their tally, Hastings has consistently come in fourth, on all but the first two days.

This means fewer voters have been voting in the Hastings per capita than the other three districts of this period.

As it stands, it is the only constituency that has failed to push through the 40 per cent mark - with Wairoa and Napier sitting comfortably above the half way mark at 53.92 per cent and 51.32 per cent respectively.

Central Hawke's Bay is trailing these figures slightly with 48.16 per cent of people getting their ballots in.

Mr Yule said he wasn't too worried by the figures, and that he expects Hastings to push through the 40 per cent mark.

For this to happen, the district needs at least another 127 to raise it up from the 39.76 per cent mark it came in at as of 1.52pm yesterday.

"I expect we will [get there]," said Mr Yule. We are doing all we can to encourage people to vote.

"I haven't got the numbers in front of me but I had it confirmed today that last local government election a whole lot of people voted in the last four days."

He said at the end of the day he just wanted people to get out there and vote.

"I think they may have been a little bit complacent up until now but I expect them to come out in numbers in the next few days," the Mayor said.

"Everybody I have talked to is voting. When I was in town this afternoon a number of people told me they just voted today or they are going to vote tomorrow.

"So I think the message is getting through that they have to vote."