Election voting statistics reveal Whanganui's busiest, quietest and most interesting voting places

UCOL voting place Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley

With more than 35,000 votes cast in the Whanganui Electorate, voting statistics released by the Electoral Commission have shown the city is an electorate of statistical oddities when it comes how we vote.

This election 34 advance voting places were dotted across the electorate, and 66 places were open on election day itself.

The busiest was the Presbyterian Centre in Hawera, which collected 4620 votes, equal to 12.9 per cent of all votes in the electorate. In Whanganui city itself, the busiest voting place was the Backhouse Building at UCOL, collecting 3343 votes.

On the opposite end of the scale, five voting places collected fewer than six votes each: Midhurst Primary School, Raetihi Chambers, Whangaehu Community Hall, Te Kura o Ratana and Te Kiri Hall.

The figures were so low at those polling places that the Electoral Commission won't reveal which parties received the votes, nor exactly how many votes were cast, to make sure they remain secret.

The most right-wing voting place in the electorate was Auroa Memorial Hall, with 85.2 per cent of voters ticking a party on the right. National received 110 votes, and Act 17. Labour only received 15 votes, or 10 per cent of the booth's total.

The booth is in the top five most right wing in the country, marginally behind three booths in Southland and one in Oamaru.

The most left-wing booth was in the heart of Whanganui, where 70.7 per cent of voters at Baden Powell Scout Hall in Gonville ticked the box for a left-wing party. Labour received 1349 votes and the Greens picked up 82. National and Act combined received only 406 votes.

Minor parties received a fairly even distribution of the vote, but the occasional oddity popped up.

Advance NZ received a whopping 7.1 per cent of the vote at the Whanganui Cook Island/Fijian Community Hall, almost eight times the nationwide total of 0.9 per cent.

Hannah Tamaki's Vision New Zealand received only seven votes out of the electorate's total of over 35,000, or 0.01 per cent, and Heartland NZ didn't receive a single vote anywhere in the electorate.

Overall, the results in the electorate stacked up similarly with the national results. Labour received 51.3 per cent of the vote, slightly up on the 49.1 per cent nationally.

National received 26.8 per cent of the vote in the electorate, exactly the same as the nationwide result.