A serious backlog in getting final polling results out to the public had many HRM municipal candidates, supporters and journalists pulling the plug and turning in for the night.
CBC Nova Scotia and News 95.7 in HRM both had to cut off on air coverage that went on far longer than they'd anticipated.
As of 11:10 p.m. the majority of HRM districts didn’t yet have half the polling tables accounted for on the municipality's online results page. District 10 Birch Cove-Rockingham-Fairview was one of the worst, with only seven of 32 tables reporting.
The only race that seemed to have a sure-fire winner was the mayoralty race, with Mike Savage being claimed the winner relatively early in the evening by several news outlets and the Savage team.
Barely 90 minutes after polls closed in the 2012 municipal election, mayor-elect Mike Savage burst through the doors of his campaign headquarters in Dartmouth to victory cheers of “Mike! Mike!”
The former Liberal MP addressed an enthusiastic crowed, touting all of his priorities from stimulating the economy to improving council transparency.
In the end, Savage received 63,547 votes, compared to second best Tom Martin’s 21,912. Fred Connors was sitting third at 20,277.
Cathy Mellett, returning officer for HRM, told CBC Nova Scotia’s Don Connolly that the final results were taking so long to roll in because it was a manual count. “This is an extremely manual process,” she said.
For updated polling results, click here for HRM's online election results page.
- The Weekly News with files from Metro Halifax
