VOTES ARE IN WITH THE COUNT CONTINUING

December 15, 2021

Voting for the 2021 Local Government Council Elections is now complete and the onerous task of counting the votes is underway.

A summary of the first preference votes for the Gwydir Shire currently has John Coulton sitting in the lead with 20.63%, followed by Tiffany Galvin with 15.39%, closely followed by Chris Matthews with 13.14% of the votes.

The final results will not be clear for some time, with the distribution of preferences performed by the computer count system to determine the elected candidates. An official announcement is expected shortly before Christmas.

Pre-poll voting proved to be very popular with voters this year with approximately 25% of votes pre-polled. This resulted in a significant reduction of people voting on the Saturday, easing the normal election day crowds.

Postal votes were also a popular method of voting. Local Government Minister, Shelley Hancock, said the eligibility criteria for pre-poll voting was more relaxed this year to ease election day crowds.

One of the measures taken to ensure COVIDsafe elections this year was the relaxing of eligibility criteria to vote during the pre-poll voting period,” Mrs Hancock said. “This meant that voting did not occur on a single day but over an election period of 12 days, including election day, to help with social distancing at polling places.”

A complete summary of the first preference votes for the Gwydir Shire can be found on the NSW Electoral Commission website.