Judge unconvinced of grounds for mayoral recount

The Whangarei District Court’s decision to dismiss Snow Tane’s application for a recount of the Kaipara mayoral vote, in last month’s local elections, was because Tane failed to convince the judge that there were reasonable grounds to believe the final vote was incorrect and that he might have been elected on a recount. Tane finished just 21 votes behind Mayor-elect Jonathan Larsen. He based his application to the court on the 21-vote margin, what he believed was a “lack of transparency over special/invalid votes”, and a concern over public confidence in the electoral process. Of the 468 speci...