UPDATE (29/11/08): For inside dope on progressive counting, Ben Raue of The Tally Room will feed through results provided by his contacts in the Greens. Andrew Landeryou at VexNews might be good for news from the other side of the fence. The Poll Bludger Investigations Unit is also at work in comments.
Local government is the proverbial bridge too far as far as my own commentary is concerned, but here by popular demand is a thread for reader discussion of the imminent Victorian council elections. I gather that most of these are held by post with a deadline of Friday, November 28 for receipt of ballots, but a few holdouts (Banyule, Brimbank, Greater Dandenong, Glen Eira, Hobsons Bay, Knox, Moreland, Port Phillip and my old home of Yarra) do it the old-fashioned way the following day (see the Victorian Electoral Commission for more detail).
Not sure how much success I’ll have with this, but it’s a worth a try. Readers who know or care about a particular local government contest are invited to write a brief, non-partisan overview in comments. If it meets my specifications I will give it a run up here, while keeping an ongoing invitation to other commenters to suggest additions or amendments. To get the ball rolling, I’ll start with everything I can tell you about the race for the lord mayoralty.
Melbourne City Council: After serving two four-year terms as lord mayor, John So is not seeking a third. The candidates to watch appear to be former state Liberal leader Robert Doyle; Adam Bandt, the Greens candidate who came within swinging distance of Lindsay Tanner in the seat of Melbourne at last year’s federal election; current councillor Catherine Ng; Will Fowles, who I’m told is from the Labor Left; Peter McMullin, former Geelong mayor and Labor election candidate linked to the party’s Right faction (although his running mate is the none too Labor-friendly Tim Wilson, director of the Institute of Public Affairs’ free trade unit); and Gary Morgan of Roy Morgan Research fame. The latter has helpfully furnished us with his very own opinion poll, which shows Doyle well ahead of Bandt on first preferences with Ng in third place. Second preferences are apparently set to produce a close race for second between Bandt, Ng and Morgan, with none posing a threat to Doyle. Bandt appears not to have done well out of preference recommendations, including those of candidates linked to Labor.
Darebin City Council: Three wards electing three councillors. Hat tip to Martin B and Caroline Church for the following.
Rucker ward: There are two Labor candidates, two Greens (Trent McCarthy and Helen Brown) and five others, only one of whom has much of an independent local profile – Darren Lewin-Hill. The ward is the stronghold of the Labor Unity sub-faction associated with state MPs Theo Theophanous and Nazih Elasmar, and is not being contested by the rival sub-faction of Michael Leighton and Robin Scott, the former and current members for Preston. At corresponding booths in the 2007 federal election, Labor polled 49 per cent of the primary vote, the Greens 31 per cent and Liberal 16 per cent. If those numbers are reflective of this vote, the result should be straightforward: one Labor and one Greens candidate will be comfortably elected, with the third seat going to the other Labor candidate or, less likely, Lewin-Hill if he can gather enough Labor preferences and votes from Liberals.
Cazaly ward: There are 17 candidates, nine of whom identify as Labor members (4 Unity, 4 Socialist Left, one unaligned), plus one Greens, one “conservative independent” (allegedly a former Labor member with a decidedly non-conservative activist history) and six other independents. The Labor candidates include incumbents Vince Fontana, a former mayor and member of the Leighton-Scott faction, and Alison Donohue, who is also receiving Leighton-Scott preferences but is apparently not directly linked. Haphazard preference arrangements suggests their proliferation might be down not to dummy candidates, as one might suspect, but to poor party organisation. Donohue and two other candidates, Ben Morgan and Joe Cutri, seem to have fared the best of the nine on preferences. The corresponding federal booth results were Labor 60 per cent, Liberal 20 per cent and Greens 16 per cent, suggesting Greens candidate Mohammed El-leissy will have to rely on Labor fragmentation to get a look-in.
La Trobe ward: Even more candidates than Cazaly ward, with better organisation lending greater credence to suspicions of dummy candidates. No fewer than 16 candidates recommend some permutation of preferences for Gaetano Greco and Tim Laurence of the Labor Socialist Left, while five candidates recommend preferences for the Unity ticket of Stanley Chiang (another associated of Leighton and Scott) and Tania Sharkas. Also on the receiving end of most Socialist Left preference arranagements is Melissa Salata of the Theophanous-Elasmar sub-faction of Labor Unity, who is hostile to the Leighton-Scott sub-faction. That leaves only the Greens candidate, Sara Scally, and another who recommends a preference to her. The campaign between the Socialist Left and Unity has been bitter: Laurence took internal party action against Chiang (which was dismissed), and there were counter-claims that Laurence broke party rules with his material. The federal election booth numbers here were Labor 62 per cent, Liberal 23 per cent and Greens 8 per cent, suggesting the issue is likely to be how the three seats divide between Socialist Left and Unity.
Banyule City Council: Consists of seven wards in Melbourne’s inner north-east. Olympia ward: Incumbent Anthony Carbines is chief-of-staff to Education Minister Bronwyn Pike (and the son of upper house MP Elaine Carbines), and thus unquestionably aligned to Labor. Beale ward: Incumbent Wayne Phillips was the Liberal member for Eltham from 1992 to 2002, when he became one of dozens of victims of the first Brackslide. Ibbot ward: Incumbent Tom Melican is said to be an independent. Hawdon ward: Vacant ward being contested by two Labor members, Sandra MacNeil and Martin Appleby, along with an independent and a Green. Grimshaw ward: Labor incumbent Dean Sherriff is being contested by two fellow party members, Frank Beard and Jess Paul. Sherriff’s career on council was saved in April 2007 when a conviction for criminal damage was overturned on appeal, but he retains a conviction for assault relating to the same incident. Griffin ward: Incumbent Jenny Mulholland challenged by Steve Walpole, a Labor member, and Dora Bergman, a one-time running mate of Mulholland. Bakewell ward: A rematch between Liberal incumbent Peter McKenna and Labor member Michael Paul, following a very close result in 2005. Andrew Landeryou’s VexNews reports that Greens candidate Ian Kirk has raised eyebrows by giving McKenna his second preference. A Greens supporter in comments claims this was in response to Paul’s attitude in preference negotiations, but the Labor camp insists discussions were entirely cordial until Kirk advised he would preference McKenna on the grounds that he was a “serious candidate”.
Glen Eira City Council: Glen Eira has gone against the prevailing trend by changing from postal to attendance voting. This has apparently discouraged dummy candidates, resulting in 26 nominations compared with 61 in 2005. The council consists of three wards which each elect three councillors, with seven sitting councillors seeking re-election. The assessments that follow come direct from Winston in comments. Camden ward: Michael Lipshutz and Helen Whiteside are standing for re-election and appear to be working together with the backing of the Liberal Party – although neither are members. Other candidates include local businessman Frank Penhalluriack (who actually lives in Kew) and a residents group ticket headed by Peter Blight. Lipshutz is a prominent member of the Jewish community and with over one third of the ward Jewish should have no problems getting re-elected. Penhalluriack has number one position on the voting card which will help him. Lipshutz, Whiteside and Penhalluriack are spending big and will probably be elected. Rosstown ward: Nine candidates. Three sitting councillors standing: Margaret Esakoff, Steven Tang and Rob Spaulding. This is the only ward with a Greens candidate – Neil Pilling – who could be the wild card as he is getting some flow of preferences. Tucker ward: Ten candidates, two sitting councillors standing: Nick Staikos (Labor) and Henry Buch (Liberal). Buch may struggle as he only recently joined council on a countback after the resignation of former Mayor David Feldman. Fellow Liberal and former councillor Jamie Hyams has scored number one position and should be elected. The other candidate with a chance is Jim Magee, who lead the fight to save the local swimming pool and polled well in the 2005 election.
Kingston City Council: The council has been reformed from seven single-member wards to three three-member wards. Hat-tip to Deano in comments for the following. North ward: Incumbent councillors Greg Alabaster and Arthur Athanasopolous are likely to be returned, but the third is up for grabs. Contestants are Paul Peulich, son of Liberal MP Inga Peulich, and Liz Larking, a past councillor and former ALP member. Mara Hayler is running for the Greens. Central ward: No fewer than 21 candidates have nominated, included 73-year-old mayor Bill Nixon and councillor Rosemary West. Other candidates include past councillor Ron Brownless, said to have done well out of preference recommendations, and John Natoli, an independent running a “well-organised campaign”. Three candidates have Labor links, including former state upper house MP Noel Pullen. Geoff Heard is said to be a “dark horse” and a “greenie”, although the actual Greens candidate is Dean Andrew. South Ward: John Ronke, incumbent for the Braeside Park ward, is said to be certain to win one of the three seats. Twelve candidates are competing for the other two. They include Donna Bauer, said to have run a “big spending campaign”; Trever Shewan, a former councillor; Carlos Lopez, the candidate of the Greens; Jeremy Nash, a member of the ALP; and Peter Wertheimer, an RSL captain.
Port Phillip City Council: JH writes in comments: “Another interesting council will be Port Phillip with the Unchain crew looking a reasonable chance in Catani Ward (Serge Thomann has been getting lots of press) and MAV boss Dick Gross could have a fight on his hands to be re-elected in Junction Ward. Having said that, I’ve not seen HTVs for anyone, so I don’t know who’s giving what. The Greens are running in every ward bar Albert Park, which is uncontested.”.
Bendigo Shire Council: The Greens have an incumbent mayor here in David Jones, seeking re-election in Kangaroo Flat ward. Another Greens incumbent is former mayor Julie Rivendell of Eppalock ward. The council consists of nine single-member wards: I gather councillors have an annual vote to determine who hte mayor will be for the coming year. The Greens between them have held the position for three of the past four years. North West Plains ward councillor Kevin Gibbins was a Liberal candidate at the 2004 federal and 2006 state elections.
Mount Alexander Shire Council: Commenter Follow the Preferences has high hopes for the Greens here. The council consists of the three-member Castlemaine ward in the centre, which is surrounded by the single-member rural wards of Tarrengower, Calder, Coliban and Loddon. The Greens have one incumbent in Philip Schier of Castlemaine ward, with Jan Garood and Doug Ralph respectively contesting Coliban and Calder.
381 Comments
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I’m confused holdthehorses. Are you denying that Sherriff did what he was convicted of doing, or do you think that this is not an issue relevant to his suitability to be a councillor?
Feral,
a factional ally of Dean Sherriff? backing a man in a different ward ? these comments show you clearly don’t know banyule, Sherriff should have been thrown off council the moment he plead guilty, this is one area that shows the law is an ass. To link sherriff and paul is just stupid, ill informed and proberbly does not deserve the time on i am spending on it
The VEC has awesomely decided to use OCR in a few councils. Luckily it’s not MCC, otherwise MelbCity would be on board to host the second ever “Tully Tally Rally” (I assume he’s still in charge?)
OCR?
Optical Character Recognition.
William,
Can you provide a summary of how this OCR voting system works?
The VEC said this in a parliamentary inquiry submission:
Thank-you.
I presume that the council election in New Zealand that used this was Wellington because of the population and the use of preferences (only some NZ councils use STV others use block voting).
holdthehorses, you seem to hate the Greens and Libs. Are you from the ALP? Are you even in Banyule? Steven Briffa, at the time Damian was doing preferences, was not know to be associated with the Libs at all. In fact I only have your word that he is. Whatever the case, he is a good candidate with good community policies. Whether he changes remains to be seen. I’m also wondering, if he is associated with the Libs, why are the ALP volenteers handing out for him? And the Liberals aren’t?
Anyway, if Steven Briffa is an independent Liberal, why has he preferenced the Greens above the Liberal?
SNIP: Defamatory comment deleted – The Management.
There is a Tony Briffa who was a Greens candidate. Maybe they are related.
Dave, dave, dave,
The preferance deal is with the greens to defeat appleby the only real candidate in the ward with out the green preferance briffa has nothing, this is a slim chance to get over the line, the ALP volenteers are not handing out for him since i have been there. I don’t hate any one, i prefer open politics, simple.
On community policies, what are his? no one has even sighted one. He did not even show up at meet the candidates night held by the weekly! was this his way of dodging the real questions some wanted to ask and Damien knew quite well briffa is associated with the libs.
Oh? So where are you handing out? I’ve been at Greensborough. How on earth do you know what Damian knew?
Appleby is not the only real candidate. Sandra also has a real chance. Of course the preference deal is to keep Appleby out, Damian wants to win. That the entire point of an election.
Dave,
You have just answered your own question, the preferance deal was made between the greens and libs and yes the object is to win an election but is this about personal
politics or party politics.
you seem to think briffa is a good candidate? tell me a bit about him so i might figure out just who he is?
William Scanning technology is most likely better and more accurate then data-entry transcription. But unless there is a preliminary sorting of the ballot papers that same problems associated with scrutiny of the ballot exist as they do with the manual data-entry process. Is it is a question of saving money and time or accuracy o=in the count. if we want to save money then the best solution is to abolish the duplication between the state and federal electoral office. One independent electoral commission responsible for all public elections. The costs of duplicating the services provided in duplication runs into millions of dollars. The City of Melbourne election this year is considerable greater then the 2004 election. In 2004 the VEC had to provide its town office space, this year the City of Melbourne has thrown in free use of its vacant space in COuncil House 1, 200 Collins Street. This has given the Victorian Electoral Commission an estimated added bonus of around $100,000. in 2005 the VEC charged the City of Melbourne over $200,000 for what they claimed was software development. Software that was readily available and already in place by the OC. The VEC never provided any details as to exactly what the money paid by the City of Melbourne was actually spent on. The City of Melbourne just paid the bill without question and without securing any proprietary ownership of the software developed. Software that the State Government and other City Councils benefited from without cost. The software had not been fully certified and as we discovered it did not meet basic expectation in ensuring that the number of ballots records match the number of ballot papers issued. No checking and no verification which is a requirement under the local government act. IN addition,unlike the other electoral commissions the Victorian Electoral Commission does not comply has not been certified to meet the industry established ISO standards.
The Victorian Electoral Commission has demonstrated its lack of professionalism and on more then one occasion its inability to self-regulate and provide an open and transparent electoral . Its refusal to ensure that ballot papers are presorted into primary votes, as recommended by the State Parliament only undermines further the confidence in its administration. The electronic voting system put in place are very much subject to fraud and misconduct.
Evidence coming from the USA and the mistakes made in the 2006 State election technology clearly indicates that we can not and must be lulled into a false sense of security, bamboozled by technology or technocrats
The fact that the VEC was unwilling to provide a copy of the preference-data files, going so far as deliberately lying and misleading the parliament by falsely claiming that the information was no longer available is of considerable concern and does nothing to instill public confidence in their administration let alone embrace the adoption of new technologies that further limit public scrutiny
Hold the Horses,
There was an article in the local paper about six weeks ago that Briffa was a Liberal in Independants clothing. Magner expressed outrage because he had arranged printing at Briffa’s business and was concerned about “secret squirrel” stuff I suppose.
Briffa is the President of the Greensborough Traders Assoc and is a close personal friend of McKenna. Briffa does not live in the Municipality although his business is located there.
Any claim that the Greens did not know about Briffa prior to the preference deal is rubbish.
GG,
Thats the rumour i have heard too, I was wanting to see if anyone else had picked up the same info, thanks for that. I would be interested Dave, if you had the same type of info as well?
Doesn’t Biffa come from Hobson bay? A very colorful and interesting carector.If its the same Biffa then yes the Greens new very much this persons background. No excuses there.
not listed in the white pages, but has a printing shop in para rd, hobson bay may be a bit far to travel? but you never know
No, I did not have that info. I dont get the paper.
Dave,
“Steven Briffa, at the time Damian was doing preferences, was not know to be associated with the Libs at all”. That’s your statement and you are wrong again.
You are the one that keeps making all the assertions and you are batting zero so far. Or are they calculated lies from the disgraced Democrats to white out their shocking sell out of principle on the preference deals in Bakewell and Hawdon.
Dave,
Handing out in Hawdon ward and you don’t get the Diamond valley or heidelberg leader and the weekly? so strange? are you an import to help out those that live outside of the ward?
Tony Briffa is running once again, but he’s a Hobsons Bay Community First candidate, not a Greens candidate:
http://www.communityfirst.org.au/candidates.htm
I have no idea if he’s related to Steven Briffa.
jh,
thanks, could be a conspiricy (ha, ha) two of the one surnames, one agenda (getting Elected) long bow:) Oh just heard APPLEBY had all of his Election Corflutes stolen from with-in the Hawdon ward, he has been given a plate No, from a friend who saw a silver colored car remove it from their front yard.
I live on a back road where it isn’t delivered. Well, it is occasionally.
Dave,
Thanks for honesty?
More canciate’s for the city of melbourne Lord Mayors election have supported the call for a manual count or tech presorting of ballot papers into primary votes prior to the data-entry of preferences. The Victorian Local Government Act the VEC is required to presort ballot papers under a manual count. They have some discression with a computerised count. In the absence of a presorted data-entry process scrutineers are denied the opportunity to properly scrutinise the ballot and the counting process.
A letter of complaint has been forward to the minister and the Victorian Electoral Matters Committee (EMC) .
The EMC in revising the stuff ups of the 2007 State Election has recommended that the VEC presort ballot papers into primary votes prior to data-entry. The VEC refusal has seriously undermined confidence in the conduct of the election count.
The list of City of Melbourne candidates includes:
Nick Columb
Gary Morgan
Shelly Roberts
Fiona Snedden
Brian Shanahan
Peter Clarke
Peter McMullin
Will Fowles
We believe the Greens also support this proposal but have not yet received confirmation of this fact.
Given that the Greens were polling 25-30% primaries in most of the corresponding booths in the Federal election, I’ll be amazed if they don’t pick up one of the positions in the Rucker ward in Darebin. Which is good – I don’t think the ALP’s stranglehold on Darebin has produced a particularly vibrant standard of councillor.
Contra William’s suggestion, I think Adam Bandt has done as well from preferences as one could expect.
He was never going to get much from the business candidates, and the ALP candidates were going to swap with each other.
So getting Morgan’s (and less signficantly Crawford’s) preferences ahead of Doyle or McMullin has to be a bonus.
Tell me more about Darebin, Martin, if you’ve time or inclination: enough for me to add a brief overview in the post.
Let’s see if I can get this quoting thing going. MelbCity @ 127 says:
The EMC in revising the stuff ups of the 2007 State Election has recommended that the VEC presort ballot papers into primary votes prior to data-entry. The VEC refusal has seriously undermined confidence in the conduct of the election count.
If the Victorian EMC is revising a stuff up of the 2007 State Election, it’s that they ran one at all. Unless you’re talking about the Williamstown and Albert Park by-elections.
William, the interesting thing in Darebin – which under review has gone from single-member wards to 3×3 multi-member wards and hence the Greens in with a good chance of electing at least 1 councillor – is that the ALP have gone nuts with stooge/dummy candidates (cue Adam’s protests of innocence) in the two Northern Wards (Cazaly and Latrobe) but not the most Southern Ward (Rucker, which Martin B correctly predicts is the Greens best chance).
http://vec.vic.gov.au/darebincandidatestatements.html
Darebin is also where Marlene Kairouz, the current State MP for Kororoit (and involved in the nasty preselection fight against Natalie Suleyman), was from before taking her place in the Vic State Parliament.
The Greens are running 4 candidates – 2 in Rucker and 1 each in Cazaly and Latrobe. I believe that up until now, Labor Unity have held every ward, but someone else will have to confirm/deny that (along with whether or not the ALP are endorsing candidates or not this time around).
City Of Kingston: hte icty has gone from 7 single member wards to 3 wards of 3 councillors. With nearly 120,000 voters Kingston has one the highest electors per councillor ratios in Victoria at over 13,000 electors.
north ward: Incumbent councillors Greg Alabaster and Arthur Athanasopolous are in the box seat to hold on whilst the third is a real toss up. Paul Peulich, Liberal M.P. Inga’s son, is running a well funded campaign and has a good flow of preferences. Former councillor and ex-ALP Liz Larking is also also runnig and may take votes away from Greg. Interesting is Larking is preferencing labour’s hopes in well done the bottom.
Central Ward: 21 candidates means a very open field. lord mayor 73 year old Bill Nixon and councillor Rosemary West running again. Past councillor Ron “the Silver Fox” Brownlees has a good array of 2nd preferences organised and independent John Natoli is putting out a well organised campaign. 3 labourites are runnnig headed by former state upper house MP Noel Pullen should do well whilst local greeny Geoff Heard is the dark horse.
South Ward: Aspendale Garden’s John Ronke will get up and then it’s a toss up for the other 12 candidates. Donna Bauer’s big spending campaign should do well. From the left field it could be former councillor Trever Shewan, Caroline O’Donnell or the Green’s Carlos Lope. labours Jeremy Nash has been very unimpressive and RSL captain Peter Wertheimer is the smokey
Great stuff, Deano – thanks for that.
While the manual count of the mayoral race is bad it is not the biggest problem for democracy in the City of Melbourne because of the business votes (2 votes per business, one vote per resident) under the City of Melbourne Act 2001 (which also exempts it from electoral representation reviews) which is outright election rigging.
jh @ 132 Sorry should read 2006..
Attached below is a copy of correspondence sent to the City of Melbourne VIC Returning Officer, Bill Lang.
SNIP: Allegation deleted – The Management.
VEC denies opportunity for proper scrutiny of the Lord Mayor ballot
Another Candidate calls for a manual or more open and transparent count
Another candidate has written to the VEC requesting a manual count and or presorting of the ballot papers prior to computer data-entry of preference votes.
Any savings in time by not presorting the ballot into primary votes(Which is debatable) come at the expense of the scrutiny of the electronic ballot denying candidates the right to an open and transparent count.
I trust that the Greens are true to their word and will support the call for a manual count or presorting of the ballot papers prior to data-entry.
– Copy of open letter to Bill Lang –
To: “Bill Lang”
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 1:39 PM
Subject: Count of Lord Mayoral vote
Bill,
After consultation with Shelley Roberts we would like to support a manual count of the Lord Mayoral vote. We believe that this will enable a more open and transparent process than the proposed computer only count. We can understand the usefulness of a computer system in the more complex councillor ballot (but even here the presorting, checking and manual count of primary votes would be appropriate). We believe that the straight forward preferential nature of the simpler Lord Mayoral ballot (the same as state and federal lower house ballots) lends itself to a manual\ count with easier scrutineering. If it is your decision to proceed with a computerised count,we would request that the ballots be at least sorted, checked and counted according to primary vote prior to any data entry.
Nothing in this request should be taken to reflect on or infer in any way
a want of confidence in you and your dedicated staff, rather we have a preference for a simple manual count which would avoid any inadvertent mistakes during data processing and allow scrutineers to undertake their role in the more tried and true fashion.
Yours sincerely,
Garth Head
on behalf of Shelley Roberts.
Candidate for Lord Mayor City of Melbourne
Tom I agree. The Stater Government should have subjected the City of Melbourne to a proper representation review (Preferably without VEC involvement) The main reason it did not is because John So, Catherine Ng, Garry Singer, Carl Getter and David Wilson voted against calling for a review (Three times) Now they are facing election they are saying they will support a review. Why did not support an open public review before the election?
In case people are wondering Why John So decided to not seek a third term? The answer is simple. He and his wife could not stand working with Catherine Ng. Those close to town hall know that relations between John So and Catherine Ng were non existent. They hardly spoke to each other. The Chinese vote represents around 13% of the electorate. A quick walk around China town and you will see posters for mainly Peter McMullin and some Catherine Ng on display. John So was a shoe in for third term but his decison was decided on the fact he could not work with Catherine Ng.
John So has supported both Peter McMullin and Gary Singer going so far as helping door knock the electorate on behalf of Peter McMullin. He has not supported Catherine Ng campaign once in her campiagn. Peter McMUllin and Kevein Louey;s (John So’s Chief of staff) candidacy has been widely canvased in the Chinese community press. Catherine Ng is expected to receive at best 40-50% of the 13% Chinese vote plus a small percentage of residnet votes Putting her on around 11% of the overall vote, a far cry from the 30-40% of the vote that John So had attracted in 2001 and 2004.
Catherine Ng should out poll Gary Singer and may collect most of Singers anticipated 5-7% of the vote (Singer is expected to be the fouth Candidate depending on Morgan and Columb’s support (Neithter of which he will pick up) Ng needs to eventually out poll the Greens and the combined vote of Peter McMullin and Will Fowles to be in a position to collect Green preferences. If Catherine can climb through the middle her next hope is to outpoll and collect preferences from Robert Doyle (Estimated at around 18-22%). Its not impossible but it is tight at about three junction points. This campaign has not been fort in the daily media, but has been more of a campaign played out by direct community networking. Come Saturday we will know more http://melbournecitycouncil.blogspot.com
William carfe to explain the snip… A bit of bias editiing…
As I’ve explained to you before, I’m not going to allow you to make defamatory statements about public officials, and I’m not going to spend one second of my time investigating whether they’re accurate or not. Do it on your own site.
As of close of businsess today the VEC has recorded 38209 votes out of 97,000 for the City of Melbourne up 5100 from yesterday which saw 9,000 votes delivered over the week end with three days to go before the Friday 6:00PM deadline. (We hope votes do not go missing as was the case in the Western metro count where the total number of votes droped from 399964 to 399486 between count A and Count B overnight. – Changing the overall result – still not fully explained) We requested information on the number of Postal and prepoll votes issued and received back prior to the State Election but our request for this information was refused and never provided. Tanksfullly the VEC is now providing this data as it should have back in 2006
SNIP: Complaint about moderation deleted. See Article 8 of comment moderation guidelines.
SNIP: Comment that completely ignores my two very straightforward preceding statements deleted. I’ll state them one last time. I’m not going to allow you to make defamatory statements about public officials, and I’m not going to spend one second of my time investigating whether they’re accurate or not. See Article 8 of comment moderation guidelines.
You do not have to. I am happy to produce the evidence whixh is all outlined in Hansard.
Which I would then need to read, which I’m not going to do.
SNIP: Last warning before I ban you, permanently this time. Get over it and move on. Failing that, read and get into your head Article 8 of comment moderation guidelines – The Management.
Ok Moving on. As I stated earlier there is three crucial junction points in the City of Melbourne Lord Mayor Count two in the middle and one near the end. The three main contenders are Robert Doyle, Catherine Ng and Peter McMullin. The fold up plays a crucial role in the outcome, which is why the process of counting the vote is crucial and will need to be scrutinized carefully. I am sure this is the case in all computerised counts. Remember this will be the first time that many councils will experience the computer count and most will be bamboozled by the lack of openness and inability to scrutinise a data-entry count. Without a preliminary sorting of the ballot papers and access to the data files it is impossible to properly scrutinise a computer count. No even William could do it effectively. I intend to live blog the count which is expected to take more then two days to count. Chances are if it is as close as expected there will be a recount. The outcome of the Lord Mayors count should also provide a clear indication as to the outcome of the Council Seven election. The following are assured of a seat Kevin Louey, Carl Jetter, Jennifer Kanis, Cathy Oke. There are three seats in contention. The outcome of the remaining three positions depends on the level of support of Robert Doyles and Peter McMullins lower house ticket. If Brian Shanahan, who is an ALP member running on Catherine Ng skirt tails, does not get over 8% then Te last three could go to Peter Clarke who is reasonable secure in crossing the line, Ken Ong has an outside chance if he can get above 8%. Again depending on McMullins or Doyle’s lower house ticket support Snedden or a number two form McMullin (Outside chance of a second doyle) can be the surprise win. All other candidates that are below number 2 (McMullin and Doyle excepted) are just dummies candidates nominated to feed preferences to the main candidates. On Thursday I hope to present our assessment of where we see the campaign. Assuming I am not banned for trying to expose problems that have been identified in the way the vote is counted.
I am looking forward to hearing more on other Councils. Nillumbik should prove to be interesting. This is a Municipality that dropped a multi member ward system and adopted a nine single member wards as opposed to three x three.
I have to say I’ve not been in this game long enough to remember what Nillumbik was 2-3 elections ago, but last time it was still single-member wards:
http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/nillumbikhome.html
Actually, 2002 was the same:
http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/NillumbikResult2002.html
Assuming that the reviews happen every second election, that would mean that it’d be almost 10 years at least before it was possible that Nillumbik could have had multi-member wards.
Sorry, I should know better than to correct MelbCity every time he’s inaccurate. Please return to normal programming now…
You can not make up stories about Banyule. The reality is far stranger than anyones’ imagination.
http://diamond-valley-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/mp-admits-calling-local-councillor-a-bitch-denies-trying-to-run-over-her-so/
jh
“Sorry, I should know better than to correct MelbCity every time he’s inaccurate. Please return to normal programming now…”
Agree , problam is MelbCity has “agenda’s” and uses ‘public’ blog sites to attack public officials ABC and VEC etc , rather than Thread subject only Danger to th site is therefore self evident
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