By DANE LILLINGSTONE
LOCAL government elections are inching closer by the day with confirmation this past week of the returning officer for the Southern Downs Regional Council elections in 2016.
It would seem the race has begun, however some in the community are still concerned about what happened in the last election.
In the 2012 Southern Downs local government elections, there was close to 5000 ‘missing’ votes in the SDRC mayoral elections and conspiracy theories have since ensued.
There were 18,801 formal votes cast in the 2012 SDRC mayoral election. Another 283 more votes were received but not counted as they were ‘informal’ – they were filled out incorrectly. However, there were 23,752 people enrolled to vote in the Southern Downs. That leaves 4668 votes completely unaccounted for.
Some have pointed to a conspiracy, but upon looking at other similar local councils in Queensland, it is an issue that is not exclusive to the Southern Downs.
The Southern Free Times did a comparison of the 2012 local government elections for mayoral candidates.
– Western Downs Regional Council received 15,427 formal votes of the 20,256 enrolled
– Lockyer Valley Regional Council received 16,418 formal votes of the 21,567 enrolled
– Scenic Rim Regional Council received 19,975 formal votes of the 24,614 enrolled
– Maranoa Regional Council received 6,508 formal votes of the 8240 enrolled
A spokesperson from the Electoral Commission Queensland (ECQ) said these were common figures of people not voting, not enrolling and incorrectly voting in postal elections.
“In relation to missing votes, this is unfortunately normal in postal elections and represents the number of ballots that were sent out, but never received back. This can be accounted for letters lost in the post (both outbound and inbound), mail returned as unclaimed (caused by electors not updating their enrolment), and electors who fail to vote,” an ECQ spokesperson said.
“In respect to the discrepancy between the numbers of enrolled electors and ballots counted, most can be explained by electors failing to vote. The other main reason is mail being returned to the Commission unclaimed because voters do not keep their enrolment current.”
Missing votes are also not an exclusive problem to small regional councils with Brisbane and Toowoomba missing large numbers in 2012.
– Toowoomba Regional Council received 78,423 formal votes of the 102,094 enrolled
– Brisbane City Council received 538,670 formal votes of the 673,827 enrolled
The ECQ has warned that should any voters choose not to vote, they will be fined.
“Voting is compulsory in Australia for federal, state and local government elections. Fines will be issued for electors who fail to vote in the 2016 council elections,” a spokesperson said.
“The Commission would like to remind voters to ensure their enrolment is up to date prior to the election, this could be checked online at the Australian Electoral Commission’s website www.aec.gov.au.
“Ensuring your enrolment is correct is especially important in council areas where there will be a full postal election in 2016.”
*Voting numbers taken from ECQ online records
