The Kaipara District Council’s deputy mayor Jonathan Larsen has been elected to the top job with a total of 3138 votes.
Final results posted by the council tonight showed Larsen won the race by 21 votes, ahead of iwi leader Snow Tane who attracted 3117 ticks.
The tight race included the third placed previous Kaipara mayor Jason Smith, 36 votes behind Tane.
Earlier today, the council held a public-excluded meeting to discuss an election process complaint letter from outgoing mayor Craig Jepson.
Jepson sought council support for an election process complaint he wanted to forward to the Department of Internal Affairs.
Departing mayor Craig Jepson claims there were irregularities in the electoral process. (Source: 1News)
He said the primary objective of the meeting was to investigate whether Kaipara had an “honest and above board” election.
Outgoing mayor digs in over election concerns, fails to produce evidence – Watch on TVNZ+
Today’s council decision to back Jepson‘s complaint was made in a narrow 5:3 vote.
The council has provided little detail about the challenge but there appeared an intent to try and halt the release of final election returns expected about 4pm today.
Regardless, the results were posted at 5.50pm.
Larsen, who was endorsed by Jepson, earlier told Local Democracy Reporting the challenge centred around election processes and referred specifically to challenging the election management processes of Kaipara District Council rather than wanting to challenge the election process for the whole of the country.
