Palmerston North's sitting mayor Grant Smith has won another term.Smith first won the mayoralty at a by-election in 2015, after being elected as a councillor in 2013.

His only rival this year was Ross Barber, standing for "Team God". Smith got 18,600 votes. Barber received 1005.

The preliminary results, excluding only the special votes, were announced by electoral officer John Annabell in front of about 150 people in the city council chamber at 7.30pm.

David Unwin/Fairfax NZ. Grant Smith returns as Palmerston North mayor.

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Palmerston North was one of the last councils to declare, with most local bodies releasing results during the afternoon.

There are four new councillors in the city: Brent Barrett, Gabrielle Bundy-Cooke, Lorna Johnson and Karen Naylor. Sitting councillor Billy Meehan was ousted.

Janine Rankin Palmerston North City Council governance team leader Kyle Whitfield flew to Auckland with three bags of voting papers. deadline.

Two of the new councillors come with political party endorsements for the first time in decades in Palmerston North.

Barrett stood for the Greens and romped to victory as the second-highest polling candidate, behind long-serving councillor Lew Findlay.

Barrett said he was "happy and humble" to have such a strong endorsement.

"It was a clear choice for voters, a clear Green message."

Johnson stood for the Labour Party and finished 11th in the race for 15 seats. Her team mates, Zulfiqar Butt, David Chisholm and Sheryll Hoera all missed out.

Johnson contested the 2013 election and 2015 councillor by-election and said that gave people time to know her name.

With three new women elected, the council's gender balance is almost equal, with a total of seven women and eight men.

Naylor, former mayoress and wife of National list MP Jono Naylor, had also stood in the by-election.

"I'm so pleased. I'm really quite overwhelmed. I've worked pretty hard the last few months, but was not expecting to do quite so well."

Bundy-Cooke, in seventh place, said she had attended many council meetings since contesting the 2015 by-election, and was confident she had learned some useful background that would enable her to get to work promptly.

Smith said he was delighted to have a 17,500-vote mandate to continue to lead the city.

He said the four new councillors would fit in to a great council team that would put a firm focus on economic development and job growth.

The Palmerston North results were among the last in the country to be released, a function of having to deliver votes cast up until noon on Saturday to Auckland to run through the STV (single transferable vote) calculator.

The final 2699 votes were bundled up at the council building at the close of voting and flown to Auckland with governance team leader Kyle Whitfield to be included in the count.

Annabell said with STV, the accuracy of progress results could be significantly affected if so many votes were left out of the calculations.

The voter turnout was 38.7 per cent, the same as in 2013.

The final finishing order for the councillor election was, in order:

Lew Findlay, Brent Barrett, Tangi Utikere, Adrian Broad, Aleisha Rutherford, Karen Naylor, Gabrielle Bundy-Cooke, Vaughan Dennison, Duncan McCann, Rachel Bowen, Lorna Johnson, Leonie Hapeta, Jim Jefferies, Susan Baty and Bruno Petrenas.

The unsuccessful candidates were: Billy Meehan, Abi Symes, Zulfiqar Butt, Sue Pugmire, James Etuale, Martin Egan, David Chisholm, Sheryll Hoera, Darryl Cleland, Elizabeth Paine, Joseph Poff, Tony McLaughlin, Gavin Edwards.

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