Voter returns are becoming a flood rather than a trickle in Dunedin, with just days to go until the election.
As of Tuesday night, 28.37% of votes had been received for the city council election, just shy of the 28.89% received by the corresponding time in 2016.
That was up from 20.23% the day before, and followed a slow start to the voting period.
Between Monday night and Tuesday night alone, 7604 votes were received, the biggest daily leap so far.
Council city services general manager and electoral official Sandy Graham said turnout was tracking about the same as the past two elections, which would see the final figure sitting somewhere between 43% and 45% if the trend continued.
That initiative garnered 2500 votes in three and a-half hours at the last election, she said.
People should drop their voting papers into the council if they had not already posted them.
If their voting papers had been damaged or they had not received them, people could go into the council offices to vote.
''I would just encourage people to exercise their democratic right and make sure they do vote,'' she said.
One voter spoken to yesterday, Vivienne Baskerville, said she always voted.
''I think it's really important to have your say and have a really good, good read through everyone's bios and see who's going to be the best person for the job, for what you think is going to be the best direction for the city.''
While turnout in Dunedin has received a bump, other parts of the South were tracking behind.
Voter returns in the Queenstown Lakes district were at 30.06%, well short of the 37.68% at the same point in 2016.
Central Otago was also well down, sitting at 40.19% compared with the past figure of 49.08%.
