A "notoriously itinerant and mobile community" was the primary reason voter returns in the Queenstown Lakes District Council were lagging behind the rest of the region, electoral officer Jane Robertson said yesterday.
By yesterday morning, 4283 (about 25%) of the 17, 420 voting papers issued had been returned.
Arrowtown had the highest return rate, with 31%, with Queenstown and Wanaka both on 24%.
On Thursday, the Otago Daily Times reported QLDC voters were well behind other districts, with 19.6% of voting papers returned since September 17.
Ms Robertson said to the best of her knowledge there had been no issue with the postal vote system in Queenstown.
While there were several people in the community who might not have received voting papers, it was likely they had either changed addresses or were not on the electoral roll.
"We've had a large number of `gone, no addresses', but the information we get is from the Parliamentary Electoral Roll.
"We base the information on what we get from [that] - it's up to the individual to ensure their details are up to date."
Anyone who had not yet received a voting paper could contact the council to check they were on the electoral roll and to apply for a special vote.
"Basically, you can enrol up until 5pm next Friday and you can still lodge a special vote until Saturday if you are on the confidential roll or you have lost or destroyed your voting papers."
Ms Robertson said she was still posting voting papers out to people.
• Central Otago electoral officer Kara Leckie said 4841 (36%) of the 13,568 voting papers sent out had been returned by Thursday evening.
• The electionz.com website reported Clutha voters had returned 4661 (38.78%) of 12,020 papers by 1pm yesterday. In the Waitaki district, 5689 (36.40%) of 15,631 papers had been returned, while in Dunedin 24,517 (28.4%) of 86,192 papers had been returned.
Voting papers must be with the returning officer by noon on Saturday, October 9.
