27 Nov 2011

Christchurch Central tied, small margin in two other seats

3:35 pm on 27 November 2011

Voters in Christchurch Central will have to wait for special votes to be counted before finding out who their MP will be.

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Sitting Labour MP Brendon Burns and National Party candidate and list MP Nicky Wagner are tied in the preliminary result. Both received 10,493 votes in Saturday night's count.

The race between the candidates was also close in 2008, when Mr Burns won with a majority of 935 votes.

Chief Electoral Officer Robert Peden says all the votes will be counted again, as well as special votes that need to be processed.

He says if the result in Christchurch remains tied, the commission will have to apply to the courts to undertake a judicial recount.

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Mr Peden says if that happens, all the votes would be counted again under the direction of a District Court judge.

The official result is expected to be released on 10 December.

Waitakere and Waimakariri seats

Two other seats have a margin of less than 500 votes.

In Waitakere, National candidate Paula Bennett managed to retain the seat with a majority of 349 over Labour's Carmel Sepuloni.

National's Kate Wilkinson won the Waimakariri seat from Labour candidate Clayton Cosgrove with a majority of 395.

Mr Cosgrove says it is too soon to concede, given there are about 2500 special votes yet to be counted.

However, Ms Wilkinson says it will be better for Waimakariri for the MP representing it to be part of the Government.

She says rebuilding the electorate's earthquake damaged town of Kaiapoi will be easier with her as its MP.

"I think that with a bit of flair and a bit of inspiration and a bit of positive thinking, we can turn towns like Kaiapoi and give them a bit of a 'wow' factor," she says.