A large voter turnout on Saturday is expected to alter the final standings in Hamilton’s local election race.
Progress results showed Tim Macindoe as frontrunner to become the city’s new mayor.
However, the council declared ‘Super Saturday’ and said the volume of last-minute votes would have an effect.
Saturday’s progress result excluded special votes and votes received on election-day morning.
More than 5500 votes were cast on Saturday in Hamilton.
If Macindoe was confirmed as mayor, then the standings in the East Ward, where he was the top-ranked candidate, would have to be recalculated under the city’s single transferable vote system (STV).
STV involved ranking candidates by number, rather than ticking a certain number of preferred candidates.
The Internal Affairs website said candidates must reach a certain number of votes to get elected.
“If a candidate is elected, they keep only the proportion of the vote they need to reach the quota. The surplus part of each vote is transferred to the voter’s second preference.”
This continues down through the candidates, until no more candidates have enough support to get elected.
“The transfer of votes is done in order of voters’ preferences. This means that surplus votes are not ‘wasted’ but are available to help other candidates to get elected.”
With 13,600 votes to retain and 13,010 votes to remove, a small majority voted to retain the Kirikiriroa Māori Ward, but this was also likely to be affected by the Saturday votes.
Updated preliminary results are also expected today.
By Libby Kirkby-McLeod of rnz.co.nz
