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General News

2 April, 2020

Still no MSC Mayor announcement

The Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ) claims that there is no delay with the results of the Local Government Elections.

By Phil Brandel

Still no MSC Mayor announcement - feature photo

The Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ) claims that there is no delay with the results of the Local Government Elections.

Some people have claimed that the recent Queensland local elections were a democratic farce due to the delay of announcements and the lag in real-time data being uploaded to the ECQ website.

At one stage the ECQ website claim that over 1600% of the vote had been counted.

The ECQ has blamed the delayed publication of the results on a “technical issue” with the data feed from polling booths to the ECQ’s website.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says she is "pretty disappointed" as the commission's one job is to make sure they could run an election.

"I'll be ordering a review ... as to why it happened," she said on Sunday

The ECQ claims that some of the delays in announcing winners for council positions have been due to the increase in postal votes and pre-polls

In a written statement the ECQ the said:

"There is no delay in the election, of the more than 14,300 electors for Mareeba Shire’s 2020 LGE, 950 applied for a postal vote and more than 7,500 pre-polled

In the 2016 local government election, it took two and a half weeks to fully declare all the councils and mayors

Postal votes continue to be returned to the ECQ and are progressively included into the count

Postal votes must be back to the ECQ by 5pm on 7 April

Counting is a painstaking manual process

The numbers are published on the website once they have been submitted by Returning Officers conducting the count,

Social distancing measures mean the count is progressing more slowly than usual."

Mareeba Mayoral Candidate and MSC Councillor Angela Toppin said she is as frustrated as everybody at the moment.

“I think that everyone has been frustrated by the delays in announcements from ECQ, not just the candidates. It generated frustration and anxiety because it coincides with the concerns and uncertainties over COVID-19; accordingly, the community is feeling overwhelmed.” she said

Even a week after the counting took place neither Nipper Brown or Angela are reading to concede to claim victory

“Figures have consistently shown I am leading Nipper, but this election has been so unusual that I would prefer to wait until matters are finalised and ECQ have made declarations. It’s been challenging as usually announcements are made within days of polling booths closing.”

As of April 2 7:08 PM the ECQ website showed that 76.56% had been counted and Angela Toppin has 5659 votes, Nipper Brown has 5018 votes.

At the TRC former Division 4 Councillor Rod Marti has an unassailable lead of 47.78%  with 69.67% of the votes counted, with former TRC Deputy Mayor Katrina Mellick conceding earlier in the week.

 

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