With voting now closed in council elections across the state, voters in the City of Greater Bendigo will get to meet their new representatives by the end of the month.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The delay is due to new electoral regulations which allow the Victorian Electoral Commission to accept postal votes that were mailed by the close of voting up to midday on October 28, five working days after the close of voting.
The VEC has devised a count plan that ensures both ballot paper security and resource efficiency.
- Lawson Fletcher
Because preference distributions or data entry can only be completed once all admissible votes have been received and processed, the result will not be known until after that date.
Votes submitted within that time frame will be counted during the coming week, with the method of counting determined by the number of vacancies to be filled and the size of the election.
As a municipality of three wards, each with multiple candidates vying for a seat in the town hall, votes in the City of Greater Bendigo election will be counted electronically using the proportional representation counting system.
Voters took to the polls last week to elect nine councillors from a bumper field of 32. Of those who served in the previous term, Lisa Ruffell and Rod Campbell chose to sit out this time around, while Peter Cox, James Williams, Elise Chapman, Helen Leach, Rod Fyffe, Mark Weragoda and Barry Lyons all recontested their positions.
Concerns were raised by some councillors about the integrity of the voting process last week, but VEC spokesman Lawson Fletcher said the counting procedure was the same as at the 2012 election.
“What has changed is the counting timeline,” Mr Lawson said.
“The VEC has devised a count plan that ensures both ballot paper security and resource efficiency throughout the entire counting process.”
Full provisional result information for the election will be published between 12 noon this Friday, October 28 and Sunday, October 30 at vec.vic.gov.au
All results are provisional until the public declaration of results is held on October 31.