BY THE BOOTH: How the Whitsundays voted for council

In one division, every polling booth had a different favourite as their pick for council.

THE Whitsunday Regional Council elections have wrapped up with three new faces joining four returning councillors.

This year's election saw many hitting the polls early amid fears of coronavirus, while in Division 1 many chose not to vote at all.

While the overall numbers are in, take a look at how Whitsunday residents cast their vote booth by booth.

DIVISION 1

In both the Airlie Beach and Cannonvale voting booths, Jan Clifford was the first preference followed by Jess Kelly and Mark Yore.

Jan Clifford also had the most postal and telephone votes.

Just 355 Division 1 voters took to the polls on election day with 1414 voting early and 153 lodging a postal vote.

DIVISION 2

It was a similar story in Division 2 where Al Grundy claimed the majority of votes in the Cannonvale Beach polling booth.

However, Heidi Ward, who landed third spot in the race for Division 2, claimed more votes than Lachlan Queenan at the Cannonvale booth.

DIVISION 3

Division 3 proved to be a landslide win for returning councillor John Collins who claimed the majority of votes at all polling booths as well as phone and postal voting.

Of the 3551 voters enrolled in Division 3, 2234 of them took to the polls early.

Just 295 people took to the Proserpine poll come election day.

DIVISION 4

Division 4 was a close race to the finish with mixed results across the booths.

In Bowen and Queens Beach, Michelle Wright was the clear favourite followed by Peter Lawton.

However, in Collinsville Brett Murphy took the top spot with 702 votes compared to 132 for Michelle Wright and 77 for Peter Lawton.

The Merinda polling booth favoured Peter Lawton with just over 50 per cent of the vote.

Brett Murphy was favoured when it came to telephone voting, and Peter Lawton took the top spot for postal voting by one vote in front of Michelle Wright.

DIVISION 5

The race for Division 5 also revealed some interesting numbers at different polling booths.

Dave Clark was the favourite in Bowen with 406 votes compared to Gary Simpson's 72 votes.

However, Proserpine and Cannonvale Beach proved to be the areas backing Gary Simpson.

Division 5 also saw a large number for absentee votes, or votes lodged at other polling booths not allocated to the division.

The absent votes swung in Gary Simpson's favour where he claimed 66.12 per cent.

Originally published as