Labour's margin in its former stronghold seat Mt Albert has shrunk a further two votes after a judicial recount.
The result of the recount was announced this afternoon through the Auckland District Court.
The seat, held by former Labour prime ministers Michael Joseph Savage, Helen Clark and Jacinda Ardern, held a margin of more than 21,000 in 2020 and more than 15,000 in 2017.
On preliminary results, Labour's Helen White retained the seat for Labour with a 106 vote margin. After special votes were counted, that shrunk to just 20 votes.
A judicial recount was called by closest rival, National's Melissa Lee, and the margin between the two is now just 18 votes.
Labour candidates have beaten Melissa Lee by an average margin of more than 12,500 votes since she first began contesting the seat in 2009.
Today, White said she looked forward to representing Mt Albert in Parliament.
She said the election result "wasn't what Labour hoped it would be" and the party had work to do to rebuild support.
Last month, White blamed the wafer-thin margin on "vote-splitting" from Green candidate Ricardo Menéndez March, who attracted 9296 votes in the seat, according to the recount result.
White said her campaign had punched above its weight.
"It's pretty good if you look at what happened in Auckland and you look at some of my very lovely colleagues who have been in these safe seats and have had the shock of their life.
"If you add the votes from Labour and the Greens together [in Mt Albert], it's not far behind the last time, it's pretty damn good."
There were three recounts following the election - in Mt Albert, Nelson and Tāmaki Makaurau.
The latter's result was also announced this afternoon, confirming Labour's Peeni Henare had lost the seat to Te Pāti Māori's Takutai Kemp.
Nelson's recount was announced last week, confirming Labour's Rachel Boyack had retained the seat, despite it appearing National's Blair Cameron had won it on election night's preliminary results, which did not include special votes.
Mt Albert final results
Helen White (Labour): 13,238
Melissa Lee (National): 13,220
Ricardo Menéndez March (Green): 9296
Ollie Murphy (ACT): 1485
Ciara Swords (TOP): 1318
Tesi Naufahu (Independent): 155
Anthony Joseph J van den Heuvel (Human Rights Party): 104
Candidate informals: 430
Total: 39,246
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