More than 800 staff have been counting votes across Tasmania’s 29 councils, with the state’s electoral commissioner cautioning that early figures in the bigger council races are not guaranteed.
Voting in the postal ballot closed at 2pm on Tuesday.
Several mayors have already been declared, while counts in councils including Hobart and Clarence were still under way when Electoral Commissioner Andrew Hawkey spoke to Pulse this morning.
“The locomotion is heading down the track at good speed,” he said.
Councillor votes go through a computerised system. Every preference on every ballot paper is entered twice, by two different staff members, to check accuracy.
Hawkey said that came to around 36 million keystrokes at the 2022 election.
There are 60 data entry points in the south and 50 in the north, running two shifts a day. Tasman is the exception, with a hand count because only one councillor is being elected there.
Some councils have to wait for space, so the Tasmanian Electoral Commission (TEC) enters a sample first to give an early indication. That is 20% of ballot papers for the larger councils and 50% for the smaller ones.
“There’s no point doing 20% of King Island or Flinders,” Hawkey said.
The system simulates the full election using that sample. Hawkey said the last one or two candidates elected or the last one or two to miss out, could still change, as happened in “maybe three or four” counts since 2014.
“It’s usually fairly accurate, but I wouldn’t guarantee any of them as it currently stands,” he said.
Votes for mayor and deputy mayor are counted by hand. Under the TEC’s guide to the count, a candidate needs more than half the votes, with preferences distributed from the lowest-polling candidates until someone reaches that mark.
The winner must also be elected as a councillor. Hawkey said an elected deputy mayor had missed out on a council seat three times since 1994, but it had never happened to a mayor, which would require a by-election.
Where a count is very close, staff can review the process and recheck bundles and candidates can request a recheck. Hawkey said concerned candidates should “get a scrutineer in there”. The TEC’s guide says scrutineers can raise concerns but cannot interrupt the count.
Turnout rose by more than 1% on 2022 to above 85% this year. Hawkey said no other Australian local government election had reached that level.
More than 23,500 ballot papers were handed in at council offices on the final day. In Circular Head, 96% of that day’s votes came over the counter.
Hawkey said high participation gave “the stronger the mandate for those that are chosen by the electors”.
He expects updated 50% figures for most larger councils within the next few days.
