Election wait ends in Wellington, Porirua and Kapiti could be next

1.00pm - By COLIN MARSHALL

Last night it was Wellington's turn, next on the list could be Porirua and Kapiti voters to finally find out who will do their roads, rates and refuse for the next three years.

As the dust finally settled on Wellington City Council elections, leaving a few new faces, around the country other councils and district health boards still wait.

But Porirua City Council and Kapiti District Council could be in for the shortest wait as their voting process enters the final audit stages.

Marlborough, the Chatham Islands, Dunedin and Matamata/Piako councils are all further away from completion and 17 of the country's 23 district health boards are also still waiting on final election results.

Department of Internal Affairs spokesman Colin Feslier this morning told NZPA they were not expecting results "at any particular time" and they would only be finished when all appropriate audit steps were taken.

"The next ones going through are Porirua and Kapiti and in both cases the process is underway but it has to come up to the same audit standards."

The Department of Internal Affairs built and supplied the Single Transferable Vote calculator responsible for turning the millions of voting papers into election results.

Mr Feslier said the actual STV calculation took "seconds" once all the votes were fed into it.

Christchurch election services company Electionz.com and NZ Post subsidiary Datamail have been processing the results.

Mr Feslier said while the work could be done on processing the different council and health board results to a certain stage, in the end all efforts had to focused on finalising one election at a time.

"There's a process by which every single vote has to be identified."

In Wellington last night, electoral officer Ross Bly was finally able to announce the final results.

While no changes were made from the preliminary results, the election was notable for the return of deputy mayor Alick Shaw, who scraped into his Lambton Ward, and the departure of three-term councillor Sue Piper, who missed out in the Southern Ward.

Mr Feslier this morning said it was heartening to have the Wellington results released.

"I think we can be very sure that these are the complete and accurate results of the election and the electoral officer was very secure in making the announcement of these as his final result."

Mr Bly was expected to release all the Wellington City Council numbers at 10am today.

Around the country election results have now been held up for 12 days since postal voting closed in local body elections.

The results should have been finalised soon after closing day on October 9 but computer problems left thousands of votes uncounted.

Yesterday justice and electoral select committee chairman Labour MP Tim Barnett announced a wide-ranging parliamentary inquiry would be held into the elections.

The Single Transferable Vote (STV) system was used for the first time by all district health boards and nine local councils.

The low voter turnout around the country, which saw many councils and local body voters stay away in droves, would also be part of the inquiry.

- NZPA