Logan City Council Election 2016: Voters turned away from Park Ridge State High School because they ran out of ballot papers

VOTERS who arrived at a southeast Queensland polling booth were left angry after it ran out of ballot papers, meaning they couldn’t vote.

Manruben resident Michelle Llewellyn was turned away from voting at Park Ridge State School in the Logan City Council elections because the booth had run out of ballot papers.

LOGAN City Council Division 9 voters were turned away from the Park Ridge State High School polling booth today because they had run out of ballot papers.

Ms Llewellyn said she had driven two-and-a-half hours to come back and vote and was told they could only mark off her name and that if she wanted to vote she would have to drive to Crestmead or Logan Reserve.

Brisbane Election 2016: Results

Brisbane Election 2016: Latest updates

Brisbane Election 2016: Polling booth violence

Brisbane Election 2016: Candidates list

Council Election 2016: Polling booths Moreton Bay

Council Election 2016: Mayoral candidates for Moreton Bay

Brisbane Election 2016: Polling booth queues 150-people long

Council Elections 2016: Sausage sizzles on the wane

The Munruben resident said she had come to the polling booth at 8am this morning to vote early but put it off because of the long queue and she had an appointment up the coast.

She said she thought when she came back this afternoon, she’d arrive at 5pm and be out by 6pm.

She said she was annoyed that electoral officials just marked her off and she didn’t get to vote.

“It’s never happened before, I saw a whole piece of paper with people’s names who couldn’t vote,” Ms Llewellyn said.

“(Electoral Commission Queensland) only has to organise this vote once and a while, why can’t they get organised to have enough paperwork?”

One of the booth supporters described the situation as the “Division 9 fiasco”.

Ms Llewellyn said her vote would have gone to mayoral hopeful Luke Smith and Division 9 incumbent Phil Pidgeon, but chose not to drive to Crestmead.

An ECQ spokesman said he was “unable to confirm this report at the moment”.

“The ECQ is not aware of any other booths in which supplies have been exhausted,” he said.

“The returning officer for each district has extra ballot papers and is able to top up supplies if requested by booth staff.

“The stocks of ballots kept in polling booths are based on estimates … The main way this figure is arrived at by looking at voting patterns in previous elections.”

The controversy comes off the back of reports voters were being turned away for incorrect details on the electoral roll at Wynnum Manly and City Hall.

ECQ announced in February that it had received a record number of both candidate nominations and elector enrolments in the lead up to the 2016 Local Government elections.

A total of 3,022,320 Queensland electors enrolled to vote at this year’s local government elections.

It was the first time the voters’ roll for a Queensland electoral event had topped 3 million.

The figure represents an increase of more than 250,000 electors since the 2012 elections, when enrolments peaked at 2,745,866.