One week from today (Saturday October 1) the door will shut on people’s chance to vote in the local body elections. 

The numbers so far show a very small percentage of Central Otago residents are going to decide who is elected – particularly in the Teviot Valley.

Across Central Otago voting is down seven per cent from the same period for the last local body elections (2019) and nearly 20 per cent down on 2016’s effort, according to electionz.com. 

About 20 per cent of eligible voters in the Cromwell, Vincent and Maniototo Wards have ticked the boxes and posted the envelope, but in the Teviot Valley it’s about half that.

Retiring Teviot Valley councillor Stephen Jeffery said he feared people did not truly understand how important it was to vote. He said it was “hugely significant” that there were good people to represent them.

“You’ve got to have good people representing you, if you want to keep Central Otago and our local area going well, if you want to make sure things are being addressed and to maintain infrastructure, like roading and the three waters and on the community side of things, the four well-beings.”

With a major Spatial Planning exercise starting in the area people needed to have input, he said.

“There are some quite significant pieces of work that are going to be happening over the short term that require the residents of the Teviot Valley to be involved even on a personal level, without their elected members, but it is really important who represents you at the table in Alexandra and also on the community board here in Roxburgh.”

He was not sure why voting numbers were so low but general apathy may have been added to by the pandemic and global events like the Ukrainian war.

“It is a different world now. I don’t know if that impacts on people’s psyche but I think it’s disappointing the turnout is so low.”

He hoped people might get voting in the remaining time to ensure a greater proportion of the population was helping choose representatives.

“It’s not even hard to do, just tick a couple of boxes and put it in the mailbox, it’s not difficult.”

Over the past three local body elections an average of 56 per cent of people eligible in Central Otago have voted. This election there are 17,229 eligible voters from a population of around 24,000.

Only 150 of those eligible in the Teviot Valley (1,288 people) had voted by midday yesterday. 

At a meeting this week Central Otago mayor Tim Cadogan said voting was “way behind” previous elections. He told councillors he had “some concern and consternation” about voter turnout.

“I think it’s important for democracy that as many people vote as possible and at this stage they’re not but maybe that will change over time.”

Postal votes need to be sent by Tuesday next week (October 4) to arrive in time for the October 8 election. Candidate information and election stories can be found on the Central App’s Election 2022 page here.