Lord mayoral election set to go down to the wire

The long campaign is finally over but Melbourne’s next lord mayor is not expected to be declared for another two weeks, with the race for the city’s top job set to go down to the wire.

Melbourne’s next lord mayor is not expected to be declared for another two weeks, with the race for the city’s top job expected to be one of the tightest in recent memory.

The Victorian Electoral Commission will start counting votes for all 77 local councils from Monday after emptying the ballot papers from their envelopes over the weekend.

Ballot packs were mailed to more than 4.4 million voters from October 7, with the VEC confirming it had received 61.33 per cent back at close of business on Thursday.

Voters had until 6pm on Friday to mail their ballot, with any mailed by the deadline to be received and accepted until midday next Friday.

A line of voters queued outside the VEC’s Melbourne office on Friday seeking ballot papers.

Lord mayoral candidates Arron Wood, Nick Reece, Anthony Koutoufides, Jamal Hakim and Anthony van der Craats were speaking to waiting voters, hoping to secure last-minute support.

Current councillor Jamal Hakim. Picture: Supplied

The VEC expects all elections to be declared by November 15, but said the Melbourne City Council results would be published on its website late on November 7, followed by the official declaration the following day.

But these dates are subject to change.

The system of preferential counting is used for single-councillor wards across the state, as well as the election for Melbourne’s lord mayor and deputy lord mayor.

According to the VEC website, most preferential counting is done manually by hand, but is completed by computer for the Melbourne City Council election.

“In a computer count, the preferences on each formal ballot paper are entered into the VEC’s computer count application and a result is calculated by computer,” the website states, with the application distributing the preferences.

The Greens’ Roxane Ingleton. Picture: David Caird

Under the preferential system, once first-preference votes are distributed, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is excluded and their votes are allocated to the next preferred candidate – where the voter has put No.2.

After this, the totals are counted again and the next lowest-scoring candidate is excluded and, so on and so forth. This process continues until one candidate receives an absolute majority of votes (more than 50 per cent).

With many of the lord mayoral candidates expected to pick up at least 10 per cent of the vote, the race is set to be decided on the preference deals struck between the teams across one chaotic weekend in September.

The frontrunners include Lord Mayor Reece, former deputy lord mayor Wood, Carlton great Koutoufides and the Greens’ Roxane Ingleton, with current councillor Hakim also in with a shot due to his preference deals.

Lord Mayor Nick Reece and his running mate Roshena Campbell. Picture: David Caird

The date results are published will vary across the 77 councils according to the number of candidates, number of vacancies, voter turnout and the method of counting used.

Provisional results are expected to be published on the VEC website from November 6 onwards, following completion of preference distributions or computer calculations.

The counting of most first-preference votes for the high-profile inner-city council of Yarra, among others, is expected to be concluded next week.

Initial results for the nine Yarra wards are expected from Tuesday when ballots for Boulevard (East Richmond and Burnley) and Curtain (Carlton North and Princes Hill) are counted.

In 2020, Yarra became the first government in Australia to be run by the Greens when five party candidates were elected.

Just two Greens councillors remained by the end of the four-year term.

Arron Wood and his running mate Erin Deering. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Electoral Commissioner Sven Bluemmel said the counting of votes would take place over the next three weeks “locally within each council wherever possible”.

There are 42 uncontested elections for single-councillor wards across the state, where the number of nominations received was equal to the number of vacancies.

Voting was not required for these elections.

The Yarriambiack Shire Council election will be declared on October 28, as all three wards were uncontested and six candidates have been elected unopposed.

Originally published as Lord mayoral election set to go down to the wire