Invercargill Mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt faces three challengers from Crs Becs Amundsen and Darren Ludlow, and Steve Chernishov.
There are 29 nominations for the Invercargill City Council, with 12 vacancies to fill.
Of five vacant positions on the Bluff Community Board, there were five who were nominated.
For the six Invercargill Licensing Trust vacancies, 11 people were nominated, including the current six members of the board.
Southland District Council Mayor Gary Tong faces challenges from Don Byers and Tim Hanna as he tries for his third term.
There are 22 people in total, from all ward nominations, running for the 12 vacant council ward positions, and of the 56 community boards and subdivision vacancies, there were 61 nominations.
Environment Southland has 12 vacancies and 20 nominations.
Of those, nine are current councillors hoping for re-election.
Current city councillor Lloyd Esler was this year nominated for Environment Southland.
He said he wanted to pursue interests more related to that role and decided about six weeks ago Environment Southland would be a "good opportunity".
"I was undecided until then and decided to jump ship ... three terms is maybe enough for anybody to be on a council."
