North Shore Wards Shine In Local Elections

One fascinating feature of the recent Election results was the strong inverted relationship between Ward size and voter response across Auckland.

Very high turn-outs came from small wards like Great Barrier (74%), Waiheke (65%) and Warkworth (59%). These wards had 705, 5979 and 12400 enrolled voters apiece.

At the other extreme, very low turnouts came from Massey, Papatoetoe and Tamiki (all 45%); Otahuhu (46%) and Papakura (47%) were close behind. Massey had 69100 on the roll, with the others enjoying enrolments of 20162, 27902, 44681 and 29234 respectively.

The actual turnout percentages could be roughly predicted by the size of each ward, with some doing much better or worse than expected.

Waiheke, for example, had 10% more of its voters turning out than was predicted by its size - local issues perhaps responsible.

Orakei's 60,329 enrolments suggested a 48% turnout, well-topped by the 58% who actually voted - the Banks effect, possibly ?

Some under-performing Wards had less turnover than their size predicted - particular true of Papakura, Otahuhu, Tamiki and Papatoetoe.

The daily rates of voting was markedly different from the last local election across Auckland over the last 10 days of this postal election.

The two election return rates were side-by-side over the first six working days, but the 2010 election had the next 5 days showing at least 5% more than 2007. Interest was obviously growing.

Over the last 5 days of voting, the 2010 election doubled its lead and was 14% better than 2007 on the 3rd-to-last day. The newspaper publication of mayoral polls and Ward returns may well have spurred many waverers into action.

The final election return rate of 51% of all enrolled voters out-performed 2007's final return rate of 37%.

Lastly, an intriguing aspect in all this came from the response levels of the 3 North Shore wards; 4% more than predicted returns came from Devonport-Takapuna electors.

Hibiscus Coast and East Coast Bays followed closely with a 3% performance over the 51% return rate expected from their 64,000 voters.