Ashburton election results available online

The current Ashburton District Council signed off on Wednesday, and who will form the next council will be announced this afternoon.
Voting in the local body elections closes at midday, and the initial progress results are expected to be available from around 2pm.
The Guardian will publish these results as soon as they are available on our website and on our social media channels.
Today’s progress result will be announced after quality assurance checks are completed, but not all the ordinary votes will have been counted, as the votes received this morning will still be in transit to the Electoral Officer.
The results will cover the mayoralty, Ashburton, Eastern and Western wards, as well as the Methven Community Board and the Braided Rivers Community Trust.
The preliminary result will be announced anywhere between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning after the last ordinary voting papers have been received and processed, but not all special votes.
That means the results could change if the voting is close.
The final official result will be released on Thursday when all ordinary and special votes have been counted.
In 2019 the district had 100 special votes, and electoral officers report that as of Thursday they had received 102.
As of 8pm on Thursday, 9971 votes had been cast – equating to 43.12 per cent of the eligible voting public, which was slightly down on the 45.34 per cent at the same stage in 2019, when the final voter turnout was 55.05 per cent.