Unlucky 13 had a new meaning for Waimate District Council electoral officer Brent Donaldson after this year's local body elections.
Waimate, one of New Zealand's smallest councils, usually has one of the best returns in voting papers when it comes to local body elections.
But this time it recorded a final return of 52%, the lowest Mr Donaldson can recall since 1974, when he joined the council 13 elections ago.
A total of 2844 papers were returned out of 5467 sent out.
In the 2007 local body elections, 63% came back and in 2004, 68%.
Compare that return with the Mackenzie District Council, which had a 66.55% return (1916 papers back out of 2879 sent out).
In 2007, there no election was required, when councillors, mayors and community board members were re-elected unopposed, and in 2004 there was a 65% return.
Electoral officer Paul Morris was "stoked" with the return, putting the high percentage down partly to the three-way race for the mayoralty.
Former Mayor John O'Neill did not seek re-election and council receptionist Claire Barlow beat councillors Graeme Page and David Pullen.
The Waitaki District Council had a 57.9% final return this election (9050 papers out of 15,631 sent out), compared with 63.6% in 2007 and 63% in 2004.
Mr Donaldson said the Waimate return was "disappointing".
"Our council usually has one of the highest returns in New Zealand," he said.
He put the low return down to the 21% of votes (123 out of 561 papers sent out) returned in the Hakataramea-Waihaorunga ward.
With no election for mayor (John Coles being returned unopposed), no election for a ward councillor (Peter McIlraith being returned unopposed) and no election for the Canterbury Regional Council, which is being run by Government-appointed commissioners and will have no election until 2013 at the latest, the only vote in the ward was for the South Canterbury Health Board, under the single transferable vote (STV) system.
"Along with the STV voting system, I don't think people [in the Hakataramea-Waihaorunga ward] were very interested," Mr Donaldson said.
