Minor changes in votes in final results of Whanganui District Council election

Votes in the Whanganui local elections have been finalised with no changes to who will sit at the council table. Photo / File

Votes in the Whanganui district's local elections have been finalised with no significant changes from the preliminary result.

The confirmed figures show top polling candidate Josh Chandulal-Mackay secured another 41 votes to bring his total to 9055.

Other successful candidates had increases of around 20 to 30 votes.

The gap between 12th placed candidate Graeme Young and 13th placed Dani Lebo closed slightly but not enough to overthrow positions, with 244 votes separating the two candidates.

The electoral system poll saw 10,608 voters select the option to keep the First Past the Post (FPP) election system. It was the clear favourite as a switch to Single Transferable Vote (STV) received 2590. The poll was binding and FPP will be used for the 2022 election.

It was a similar result for the basis of election poll where 10,373 votes were recorded to keep an "at large" system, against 2327 votes to change to a ward system.

A total of 8072 voters want to see Whanganui District Council drop its number of councillors to 10, while 5252 voters want to keep the number of representatives at 12.

Both polls are non-binding.

The mayor, councillors and rural community board will be sworn in on Thursday, October 31, at the Royal Wanganui Opera House at 4pm.