Voter returns in local body elections are down on previous elections, with less than a week to go.
Voter returns in the big cities, in particular, are significantly down on previous years.
Just 18 percent of eligible voters in Auckland have sent their voting forms in.
In Wellington, only 22,000 - or 16 percent - of registered voters have so far returned their papers.
But in some smaller centres, such as Invercargill, the trend is different.
28 percent of people in the southern city have already voted, a figure that was up on the 2013 elections.
Voters have until this coming Saturday to get their vote in.
