An hour before Greg Brownless heard he had been elected mayor, he was balancing up whether to move the chicken coop or mow the lawns.

Unopposed Napier Mayor Bill Dalton says he has conflicting emotions about the new Napier City Council table.

Justin Lester was getting a haircut when he took the phone call telling him he had won the race to become Wellington mayor.

Garry Webber has been elected Western Bay of Plenty mayor in a tightly contested race.

Lianne Dalziel has thanked voters for placing their trust in her as she romped to a landslide re-election victory today and pledged: "I won't let you down".

Labour MP Phil Goff has been elected the new Mayor of Auckland.

Defeated Auckland Council candidate Bill Ralston said voting results show that the people on the right of the political spectrum "just

Northern Hawke's Bay farmer Craig Little has been elected to a second term as Mayor of Wairoa in an expected result despite a strong challenge from departing three-term councillor Benita Cairns.

Today's local body election result is a resounding victory for CHB mayoral candidate Alex Walker, who in the preliminary count has come in with about twice the vote of rival Sally Butler.

Taupo mayor David Trewavas has been returned to the top job with over a 5500 vote margin at the progress stage.

Preliminary results are in for most parts of the country in today's local council elections.

Full preliminary results for 2016 local body elections for the North Island.

3.05pm: Re-elected mayor Steve Chadwick has confirmed Dave Donaldson will again be her deputy mayor. Mrs Chadwick and her supporters

INTERACTIVE: Explore the local election results as they come in.

The race to elect a new mayor for Auckland and other cities and towns round the country is drawing to a close.

Voter numbers in South Auckland are the lowest across the entire Super City as the deadline for returning ballot papers looms.

INTERACTIVE: Explore turnout maps, wasted votes and numbers of female candidates in the 2016 local elections.

COMMENT: Once again the democratic process has been diverted by a large donation to a single candidate.

A Wellington boy was worried outgoing mayor Celia Wade-Brown would miss her mayoral chains - so he made her some new ones out of chocolate

COMMENT: Fear of prime Pukekohe growing land being lost to development seems to have become a last-minute Auckland Mayoral race issue.

Voters need to assess which of candidates looks more capable of doing so. The elections matter and so does your vote.

Please vote TODAY. Today is the last day to post voting papers to be sure they meet the Saturday deadline for the local body elections.

It seems there's little motivation, especially for the young, to have their say on who should run our towns and cities.

Local government appears to be headed towards an existential crisis - a situation in which few of us care enough about the existence

Latest figures show just 19.88 per cent of votes have been returned in Auckland, with some areas as low as 16.3 per cent.

#WillSheVote? Lifelong Local Body election non-voter Hinekia Fitzgerald hears from candidates on her journey to the polls.

Low voter turnout in Auckland is spurring a call for a major review of local body elections.

The Auckland Mayoral candidates address Hinekia directly to canvas for her vote in the current local body election

Phil Goff attended a church service for cats and dogs in central Auckland yesterday. Vic Crone kept out of the rain, criss-crossing the city's malls.

Phil Goff's alarm clock will ring at 6am today. He will get up, put on gumboots and feed out baleage to the steers at his 8ha farmlet in Clevedon.