Snow Tane has announced he is seeking a recount of votes in the Kaipara District Council mayoralty race.
Would-be Kaipara Mayor Snow Tane is seeking a vote recount.
Tane is just 21 votes behind incoming new Mayor Jonathan Larsen after Friday’s local election results.
Dargaville’s Tane has 3117 mayoral votes, compared with Topuni’s Larsen on 3138 votes.
Matakohe’s Dr Jason Smith, who achieved 3081 votes, has confirmed he won’t be seeking a mayoral vote recount. He was 57 votes behind Larsen, 36 votes behind Tane.
Tane confirmed his team will be lodging an application for a judicial vote recount in the Whangārei District Court before the end of today.
Newly-voted-in Larsen will be knocked out of Kaipara District Council (KDC) if Tane’s mayoral vote challenge is successful, as he stood for the top job only, whereas Tane also stood as a ward candidate.
Tane is already a shoo-in as one of three Wairoa general ward councillors.
He topped the ward’s vote with 33.4% of its electors voting for him. He has 2443 votes from the ward’s 7306 electors – almost 1000 votes ahead of the next-nearest contender, Joesephine Nathan of Dargaville, with 1444 votes.
He said he was exercising the opportunity to have a judge decide whether there were grounds for a mayoral vote recount and if so, to then have that go ahead as part of the local election’s democratic processes.
Tane said he believed he would have a stronger opportunity to bring a more inclusive approach to the council table if he was mayor.
Tane said there had been email exchange between himself and Larsen after Friday’s final results came out.
He had congratulated Larsen on his achievement.
Tane said today he still saw himself as a mayoral hopeful.
KDC’s 58.4% election voter turnout was the fifth-highest in New Zealand’s local elections and the 61.6% voter turnout in its Wairoa general ward was Northland’s highest.
Who’s in and out in this three-seat ward will potentially shift if Tane becomes mayor.
Dargaville’s Gordon Lambeth has won the ward’s third seat with 1345 votes.
Larsen confirmed after the election Lambeth will be his deputy mayor.
Tangiteroria’s Jan Beatty on 1334 votes is fourth-ranked and would become part of the council if Tane becomes mayor.
But based on the current ward line-up with him still in it, she is just 11 votes behind Lambeth.
Beatty said she would not be seeking a vote recount.
Fifth-ranked outgoing KDC Māori ward councillor, Dargaville’s Pera Paniora, is 27 votes behind Lambeth.
Based on current final results, Paniora also said she would not be seeking a vote recount.
Nathan said with so much uncertainty over recounts, the situation was challenging.
She’d been expecting her council induction today, but this hadn’t happened because of the situation.
Kaipara’s smallest vote margin was in the Ōtamatea general ward.
While Mike Schimanski, of Maungaturoto, was streets ahead on 820 votes, fellow newcomer Denise Rogers was just two votes clear of Mark Vincent’s 740 votes and three ahead of Fiona Kemp.
Vincent plans to lodge a judicial vote recount in Whangārei District Court tomorrow.
Kemp confirmed seeking a vote recount was “not off the table”.
Kemp, who has chaired Northland’s Joint Climate Change Adaptation Committee for three years and is a board member on the Northland Conservation Board, said she was talking with her people before deciding whether to proceed with seeking a vote recount.
Senior electoral officer Dale Ofsoske said there were two options for those wishing to challenge final election results.
The first was to apply to the District Court for a judicial recount within three working days of the final results being declared. This would mean by Wednesday.
Ofsoske said the second option was to apply to the District Court for a judicial inquiry within 21 days of the declaration. This would have to be done by November 7, where “only specific grounds can be investigated”.
He said seeking a judicial inquiry was a serious matter, which he’d seen happen only once in his 40-year election services career.
The District Court determined if either option proceeded, Ofsoske said.
A deposit of $750 was required for each and could be refunded at the judge’s discretion.
Kaipara’s uncertainty has seen Northland’s first proposed all-councils pōwhiri scheduled for Wednesday at Waitangi Treaty Grounds postponed.
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.