Count confirms council win for ex-Refuge head

The official declaration of results from the Rotorua District Council byelection has been made public.

The results show no change to the result of the election after the final 164 late votes were counted.

Merepeka Raukawa-Tait, a former head of Women's Refuge, won the byelection by 1156 votes from her closest rival, Brett Marvelly, who got 3893 votes.

In third was Victor Storey with 2459, fourth was Cliff Lee with 1722, fifth was Dianne Western on 1314 and sixth was Bill Hedges with 1170 votes.

Informal votes remained at 30 while there were 48 blank voting papers received by the electoral office.

Just 34.74 per cent, or 15,685 of Rotorua's 45,118 eligible voters had their say. The byelection was called after councillor Geoff Kenny resigned his position in August to take up a new job in Wellington.

The next local body election is due to be held in October 2013.