Voting in this year’s local body election’s closes at noon and officials in Dunedin are hoping for a last-minute surge in votes as returns trail previous elections.
One of those who cast their vote was semi-retired farmer Lindsay Carruthers, of Middlemarch, who said he filled out his voting papers as soon as he got them.
"Then it sort of sat and waited for me for a day or five, you might say," Mr Carruthers said.
"It’s one of those things, ‘Oh, I forgot, I forgot, I must do it. Oh, I forgot, I’m too late’.
"When it turns up, you do it and get on with it."
Mr Carruthers was a regular voter in local and national elections.
Voting was an opportunity to voice your opinion - failing to vote meant you had no place to complain about the result, he said.
He hoped incoming council and community boards could "share in the solution" to issues.
"Floodwaters through the village - everyone doesn’t want it around the house, they don’t care who gets it," he said.
"But everybody’s got to accept a little bit of the pain."
Issues in Dunedin city included "expenditure and the hospital and, as much as anything, infrastructure - you get a tiger by the tail in a lot of these things".
Last night, the cumulative return was sitting at 32.50% - well behind those on the eve of the past three elections, when the return was above 39% each time.
In 2022, the turnout finished on 48.22% and was above 45% in 2019 and 2016.
Dunedin City Council deputy electoral officer Robyn Dillon said historically, Dunedin was one of the stronger metropolitan centres for voter turnout.
The city had a reputation for leaving voting until the last minute and, until noon, there was still time for people to vote.
The council is running a "drive and drop" voting service in the Octagon on this morning (9am–noon) to allow for drive-by voting.
Some orange voting bins are still located around the city where people can drop their votes up until noon.
"At 11.55am, we’ll have somebody standing beside them, who will literally, at 12 o’clock, put a sticker over the slot, unchain them, take the insides out, jump in a car and run back here for them to be sorted," Ms Dillon said.
The council said it had chartered a small aircraft to fly today’s votes to Christchurch to ensure they would be counted as early as possible.
Preliminary results from across the South will be on the Otago Daily Times website today.
Last chance
Dunedin voting bin locations today:
Mosgiel Library
Dunedin City Library
South Dunedin Library
New World Gardens
New World Central City
Woolworths Dunedin Central
Woolworths Dunedin South
Pak’n Save
All bins close at noon.
