Vic Pennisi has stopped well short of declaring victory in the Southern Downs Regional Council mayoral election but has a strong lead of just over 1600 votes ahead of Tracy Dobie following the close of counting last night, Saturday 28 March.
With just over 76% of the mayoral vote finalised, this is the breakdown of first preference votes –
• Vic Pennisi – 8607 (44.68%)
• Tracy Dobie – 6968 (36.17%)
• Peter Kemp – 2753 (14.29%)
• Joe Doepel – 934 (4.85%)
WHAT HAPPENS NOW?
The remaining mayoral votes to be counted are understood to be predominantly made up of postal and telephone votes and a small number of ‘declared institution’ votes (ie aged care facilities).
As neither Vic Pennisi nor Tracy Dobie currently has 50 per cent of the first preference vote, a distribution of preferences from Peter Kemp and Joe Doepel may still need to occur. Peter Kemp did not formally direct his preferences to either Dobie or Pennisi, and with optional-preferential voting for the mayor some of those who voted ‘1’ for Kemp may not have given a preference vote at all, but it’s too early to be definitive about that.
The question is will the Electoral Commission of Queensland direct the local returning officer – based at the Warwick Town Hall – to perform a preference distribution first, or wait for the postal and telephone votes to come in – at this stage that is unknown. What we do know is that the Electoral Commission and its local staff have up to 10 days to complete the entire election count.
Today – Sunday 29 March – local polling staff are doing a ‘check count’ of the mayoral votes and have commenced counting the votes for the eight councillors, with 26 councillor candidates.
In short – a final result on the mayoral election could be several days away – almost certainly not before Tuesday.
COUNCILLOR VOTE –
Only about 20 per cent of councillor votes have been counted so far today, Sunday, but former deputy mayor Ross Bartley has taken an early lead, sitting on 5.68% of the votes counted (2016 votes), with current deputy mayor Jo McNally not far behind on 5.14% (1824). Performing strongly in the early part of the councillor count are –
• Cynthia McDonald (4.94% – 1752)
• Sheryl Windle (4.76% – 1691)
• Andrew Gale (4.76% – 1691)
• Cameron Gow (4.71% – 1673)
• Glyn Rees (4.59% – 1629)
• Julia Keogh (4.52% – 1604)
• Russell Wantling (4.49% – 1593)
• Marco Gliori (4.4% – 1561)
• Stephen Tancred (4.33% – 1538)
• Rod Kelly (4.07% – 1446)
Note – Windle and Gale – that’s not a misprint…
UPDATES TO FOLLOW…
COUNCILLOR RESULTS (AS OF SUNDAY MORNING, 20% OF VOTES COUNTED…)
CARRICK, Marion 1103 (3.11%)
TANCRED, Stephen 1538 (4.33%)
GRANT, Greg 1327 (3.74%)
CABEZAS, Paola 926 (2.61%)
MCDONALD, Cynthia 1752 (4.94%)
MCNALLY, Jo 1824 (5.14%)
JENSEN, Michael Damian 1403 (3.95%)
LAWS, Sue 1305 (3.68%)
HARROLD, Amanda Joy 1256 (3.54%)
GREENE-GALLOWAY, Jenn 924 (2.60%)
GLIORI, Marco 1561 (4.40%)
ETTERY, Robert 889 (2.50%)
MARSDEN, Barbara 941 (2.65%)
WANTLING, Russell 1593 (4.49%)
GOW, Cameron 1673 (4.71%)
KEOGH, Julia 1604 (4.52%)
JOHNSON, Gregory Glenn 682 (1.92%)
STOCKS, Yve 1296 (3.65%)
KELLY, Rod 1446 (4.07%)
BARTLEY, Ross 2016 (5.68%)
MCNICHOL, Marika 1214 (3.42%)
HUNTER, Max 1107 (3.12%)
CHRISTENSEN, Scott 1107 (3.12%)
GALE, Andrew 1691 (4.76%)
REES, Glyn 1629 (4.59%)
WINDLE, Sheryl 1691 (4.76%)
