Brisbane City Council election results:
Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner is claiming victory despite a farcical count during Queensland's local government elections where a technical meltdown meant none of the results were showing on the Electoral Commission of Queensland's website.
Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner is claiming victory despite a farcical count during Queensland's local government elections where a technical meltdown meant none of the results were showing on the Electoral Commission of Queensland's website.
Queensland's already controversial local government elections, heavily criticised for being held during the coronavirus pandemic, descended into farce last night.
At 10pm, four hours after polls closed and when the count stopped for the night, hardly any results had been released, with some Brisbane wards having only a handful of votes counted, according to the ECQ website.
Only 20 votes had been counted at The Gap while none had been counted at Hamilton. Brisbane's mayoral vote remained stuck on just over 14 per cent of the vote counted.
The ECQ blamed technical difficulties on its website for slow results, saying the counting of ballots had gone on as expected.
But that didn't stop current Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner from claiming victory late tonight based off information from his scrutineers.
An ECQ spokeswoman said "technical issues are slowing the display of count results on the ECQ website'.
"Our team is working on resolving them," she said.
"Results will be available on the website as soon as possible," she said.
Preliminary counts are underway. Results are coming into the ECQ as expected.
— ECQ (@ECQInfo) March 28, 2020
We're having technical issues displaying results online. We are are working on the issue. Preliminary count continues tonight till around 10pm. The official count begins tomorrow.
Counting is expected to wind down for the night at 10pm and the official count will commence tomorrow.
I hear there are lots of results being counted and phoned through, but when it comes to letting the world know them, it's a case of "Computer says no". Technical problems.
— Antony Green (@AntonyGreenABC) March 28, 2020
Updates across the board have been slow, with some councils' counts having barely moved through the evening.
The diabolically slow count has people erupting on Twitter with Alex Smock tweeting 'ECQ have barely released any results. Unusually disgraceful even by ECQ standards' while Ben Smee joked 'Queensland elections 2020, brought to you by hand sanitiser and the DNC'
Moreton Bay Regional Council's mayoral count hasn't updated in over an hour.
Local Government Association of Queensland chief executive Greg Hallam said "unprecedented circumstances" surrounding the coronavirus could be behind the slow count, with many voters choosing pre-polling or postal voting.
"We understand this has affected the speed with which the vote can be counted but we sympathise with candidates awaiting the result," Mr Hallam said.
"It is our hope that the results will be a lot clearer by the end of Sunday."
It’s understood the ECQ is now welcoming scrutineers to observe the vote given the technical issues.
I've seen results coming in on the @ECQInfo website for the Lord Mayor count, but they are all over the place. Data seems wrong, with Greens candidate count going backwards, and several independents making jumps by the thousands.
— Thom Browning (@ThommyBee) March 28, 2020
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