VEC won’t rush revealing results for council elections

THIS year’s local council elections will have a record turnout, but the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) says it will not put public health at risk during the counting process.

The VEC had received about 3.2 million ballot envelopes (or 75 per cent of the possible return rate) by close of business on Tuesday last week ahead of the October 30 deadline, meaning the final result will beat the previous record rate of 75.19 per cent in 2005.

Processing the larger number of returns has meant the extraction of ballot papers from envelopes in preparation for counting or computer data entry is slower than anticipated in some areas.

‘We must also ensure strict adherence to our COVIDSafe plan to maintain the health and wellbeing of our staff and scrutineers and this is also slowing the process,” Electoral Commissioner Warwick Gately said.

“I ask all election participants to be patient as the wellbeing of our people and the accuracy of the process must remain the prime considerations over a rushed result.

“The target to complete all counting and the declaration of all results remains Friday, November 13.”

He also appealed to all participating scrutineers to abide by the COVIDSafe arrangements and directions of the Election Manager during counting operations.

“Non-compliance and bad behaviour will not be tolerated.”

Manual counting of ballots is generally performed in single councillor wards, whereas computer data entry is required to calculate the results for multi-member wards in a proportional representation system.

While some counting will take place in election offices, the data entry for many councils is taking place at locations including the Geelong Showgrounds, the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds, and Sandown Park.

The VEC recommends anyone interested in results should keep an eye on the VEC’s social media accounts for updates on results as they start coming through on the VEC website (vec.vic.gov.au) as of Monday this week.