Cooper opponent Shorne Sanders appeals Division 8 election result

Steve Cooper’s razor-thin Division 8 Bundaberg council victory may be short-lived with the Supreme Court to rule on allegations of the ECQ’s bungled handling of the election.

Steve Cooper’s razor-thin Division 8 victory may be short-lived with the Supreme Court to rule on allegations against ECQ’s bungled handling of the election.

Bundaberg division 8 residents may need to go back to the polls if an appeal by losing candidate Shorne Sanders is upheld in the Supreme Court.

The Electoral Commission Queensland declared incumbent councillor Steve Cooper the winner of the division 8 count on April 2, beating Mr Sanders by the slimmest possible margin of one vote.

While Mr Sanders congratulated his opponent following the declaration, he made it clear on April 3 that this was just a “courtesy call” and not a formal concession, and indicated he was preparing a formal challenge against the result.

“Watch this space,” Mr Sanders said at the time.

Queensland Supreme Court documents obtained on Monday by this publication revealed that less than one week later on April 9, lawyers acting on behalf of Mr Sanders lodged an application with the Court of Disputed Returns, which is a division of the Supreme Court, seeking an order to void the result and conduct a new division 8 election.

In the application, Mr Sanders alleged ECQ tainted the division 8 election outcome with the way in which it ran the election, citing issues for which the body was widely criticised throughout the state following March 16 voting.

The ECQ is listed as a respondent in Mr Sanders’ application, with Mr Cooper listed as an interested party.

In an affidavit sworn on April 5, Mr Sanders said the Avoca polling booth was “disorganised, understaffed and chaotic” and claimed some residents were unable to vote due to a shortage of ballot papers, and others being turned away by the ECQ staff after waiting in line for nearly an hour.

MR Sanders' application said the division 8 election result was 'tainted' by ECQ's bungled handling of the election including having insufficient ballot papers and turning voters away who had waiting in line for nearly an hour.

Following the election, Mr Sanders said in his affidavit that he discovered the computer systems at the polling booth stopped working resulting in at least one elector being unable to vote.

Mr Sanders’ application also claimed the ECQ had failed to provide electronically assisted voting, which is listed in the Local Government Electoral Act as one of the ways in which residents can cast their votes, and had failed to post ballot forms to some voters who had registered for postal voting.

As a result of these alleged issues and the one vote margin to the division 8 election, Mr Sanders claimed the result “does not represent the free and deliberate choice” of voters.

Speaking on Monday, Mr Sanders said he was eager to fulfil the role of councillor if that was the will of the people in a fairly run election.

“The closeness of it and people getting turned away, the opportunity is there to put my hand up and say ‘hang on a minute I wanted this role,’ and there are people I know that wanted to vote and didn’t get to vote, and the outcome may have been different,” he said.

Mr Sanders said his current advice was the court’s hearing of his application is scheduled for a date in June.

Mr Sanders said he was eager to fulfil the role of councillor if that was the will of the people in a fairly run election.

Mr Cooper said he was awaiting the outcome of the hearing, but noted the issues with ECQ’s running of the election included in Mr Sanders’ application were not specific to Bundaberg.

“Other people can have their opinions on (whether the election was tainted), but everything that happened, happened everywhere and that was just a fact of life,” Mr Cooper said.

“It wasn’t just here, the problems occurred everywhere in the whole state,”

Bundaberg Mayor Helen Blackburn said the ECQ was “deficient” in its running of the election, and council “will just have to live with” the findings of the Court of Disputed Returns.

If required a by-election could be run at no further cost to ratepayers due to election costs being accounted for in every budget, Ms Blackburn said.