Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Ousted Justin Lester has officially called for a mayoral vote recount in Wellington.It comes after results put Mayor Andy Foster just 62 votes ahead of Lester to claim the city's top job.Lester was at the Wellington District Court this afternoon to lodge a request with a judge to recount the mayoral votes.Outside of court, he said he believed there was a "strong likelihood" there should be a manual recount.It would now be up to a judge to decide but there had been no indication of a timeframe, Lester said.Justin Lester and Graeme Edgeler outside Wellington District Court. Photo / Emme McKayWellington City Council uses the STV voting system, which sees voters rank their mayoral preferences.There were at least 302 partially informal votes which were excluded because voters filled the form out incorrectly.In Lester's formal application, it said 193 of the partially informal votes were in Lester's favour and 109 in Foster's."The 84-vote difference here would be enough to change the result, if on a close inspectio