I Hereby Declare That The Following Person Is Approximately Elected.

I happened to be looking at the 2006 election results for Hull City Council, from the council's own webpage. The result for Marfleet Ward caught my eye. It's a clear Labour victory, with us in second, but look at the Conservative "result":

Marfleet

Name of candidate Description Result

ABBOTT John Francis Conservative and Unionist Party 217 approx
CHAYTOR Sean Labour Party 1023
MATTHEWS Joseph Allen Liberal Democrat 452
Total number of votes: 1692

How the blazes can John Francis Abbott get approx 217 votes? And what if he'd got approx 1024 votes? I can only guess this was to do with a disputed spoilt ballot paper, but has anybody else ever seen an 'approx' result?