It’s not too late to vote in the Local Elections but move fast, as voting papers must be in our ballot bins by noon this Saturday.

The orange bins are at the Ashburton Library and Council customer services, Tinwald FreshChoice, EA Networks Centre, Rakaia Mobil and Methven Four Square.

Group Manager of Democracy and Engagement Toni Durham said it was too late to post back papers, as they would not arrive in time to be counted.

“But it’s definitely not too late to vote, you just have to drop your papers into our orange bins. It’s also not too late to enrol to vote and people can cast a special vote at Council by visiting our election team at Te Whare Whakatere.

“If you’re looking for more information about why local elections are important, then we also have some explainer videos in English, Tagalog, Samoan and Tongan.”

The last chance for special votes will be on Saturday, from 10am-12pm.

If you’re casting a special vote because your address details are either missing from the Electoral Roll, or are out of date, then you they must make contact with the Electoral Commission to have this updated by Friday 10 October.  You can go online vote.nz or phone 0800 36 56 76 to do this.

Voting closes at 12pm on Saturday and progress results are expected to be released a short time later – the progress results account for all votes received up to and including Friday. Votes received on Saturday will be included in preliminary results later in the week.

Mrs Durham said the Mayor elect and unsuccessful mayoral candidates would be contacted by CE Hamish Riach with early results.

“All other candidates will receive results via email and then we’ll post the results on our website, voteashburton.nz, on our Facebook page and by poster on the window of Te Whare Whakatere and EANC entrance doors.”

Ashburton district voters will be choosing a new mayor, five Ashburton Ward councillors and two Western Ward councillors. No election was needed in the Eastern Ward, with two nominations for the two seats.

No election was needed either for the Methven Community Board, where five candidates stood for five seats.

All the newly-elected members will be sworn in at the inaugural meeting of Council on Wednesday 29 October. Council will first meet for business on 5 November.