Do you remember voting in a council election way back on 4 December? The results of that election were finally declared this morning (Wednesday 22 December).
Why did the results take so long to come? Optional preferential voting was relatively easy (despite the 80 candidates). The method of counting however is complex. The voting process is represented in a complicated spreadsheet with 1765 rows and 371 columns.
The newly elected Councillors were:
* Elected immediately having achieved a quota:
- Alan TICKLE (IND) Group A, Black Head (Greater Manning region)
- Peter EPOV (IND) Group C, Strathcedar (Greater Manning region)
- Claire PONTIN (ALP) Group H, Red Head (Greater Manning region)
- Troy FOWLER (LIB) Group K, Forster (Great Lakes region)
* Achieving a quota after initial distribution of preferences:
- Peter HOWARD (IND) Group C, Forster (Great Lakes region)
* Elected without reaching the quota after distribution of all remaining preferences.
- Jeremy MILLER (IND) Group B, Old Bar (Greater Manning region)
- Paul SANDILANDS (IND) Group D, Forster (Great Lakes region)
- Dheera SMITH (GRN) Group E, Mondrook (Greater Manning region)
- Katheryn SMITH (IND) Group F, Gloucester (Gloucester region)
- Kathryn BELL (IND) Group I, Taree (Greater Manning region)
- David WEST (LIB) Group K, Brimbin (Greater Manning region)
This means that there were no successful candidates from anywhere south of Forster and only one elected from outside the Forster/Greater Manning area.
At North Arm Cove, Group C topped the count gaining one third of the formal votes. Group C did even better at Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest gaining 46% and 48% respectively. This was in large part due to Group C including a local (Tea Gardens) candidate, Sandra Bourke, who gained a significant below the line personal vote.
