Although progress results have all but confirmed the new mayor and council, Bev Edlin is still in with a chance and is nervously awaiting the Preliminary Results later this evening. Bev is only 62 votes behind Catherine Stewart in the Otumoetai-Pyes Pa ward.

Bev Edlin is waiting to see if she will have a second term on council. File Photo.

Special votes are being counted, although the absolute final vote won't be known until Thursday.

For Bev, the large number of blank voting papers is cause for consternation.

'What you do find in this area is a huge amount of blank voting papers – 783 in fact,” says Bev.

'I'm curious as to why so many of them were blank.

'People have told me that they only voted for me and no one else, as a strategy. So whether that has an impact on what's considered a ‘blank' voting paper, I don't know.”

Bev was among seven councillors elected for the first time in 2013, of whom two – John Robson and Matt Cowley – are definitely out.

In the ward vote Larry Baldock took 4,265 votes with Catherine Stewart taking 4,096. Bev has 4,034 votes. This is based on about 98 per cent of the votes having been counted. The progress result does not include some special votes and votes returned on Saturday that remain in transit to the processing centre.

After preliminary results are released later this sevening the offical final result will be available next week.