According to progress election results Mr Lester has won by a clear margin over Nick Leggett, with Jo Coughlan in third place.
Wellington’s Returning Officer, Clare Sullivan, says Mr Lester won by a majority of over 6000 in the last iteration of the progress result. Some 4500 votes still have to be counted – but they are not expected to change the result.
Progress results for the Wellington City Council ward votes are:
- Northern: Malcolm Sparrow, Jill Day and Peter Gilberd elected
- Onslow-Western: Andy Foster, Simon Woolf and Diane Calvert elected
- Lambton: Iona Pannett, Nicola Young and Brian Dawson elected
- Southern: Paul Eagle and David Lee elected
- Eastern: Sarah Free, Simon Marsh and Chris Calvi-Freeman elected.
The following have been elected to the Makara-Ohariu Community Board: Christine Grace, Hamish Todd, Chris Renner, John Apanowicz, Wayne Rudd and Judy Liddell.
A by-election will be necessary to finalise the membership of the Tawa Community Board given the election of Jill Day as a City Councillor.
See the full list of progress results.
Progress voter turnout in Wellington is at 42.08 percent compared with 40.85 percent in the 2013 elections and the 2010 turnout of 40.11 percent.
Ms Sullivan said Wellington’s turnout had benefitted from a “major last-minute surge” of voters in the past few days. “We had people running in the doors this morning – it was good to see people making the effort.”