Logan mayoral results slow to trickle in with no sure winner yet

Logan is likely to have to wait to find out who will be its next mayor. Election analyst Antony Green said tonight’s results may not be indicative of winners and there was a ‘high likelihood’ the count would only get to 25 per cent tonight.

Logan City Council Mayoral candidates (left to right) Stewart Fleming, Paul Taylor, Darren Power, John Freeman and Sherry Heath pose for a photograph, Saturday, March 28, 2020 (AAP Image/Richard Walker)

LOGAN will have to wait to find out who will be its next mayor.

Election analyst Antony Green said tonight’s results may not be indicative of winners and there was a “high likelihood” the count would only get to 25 per cent tonight.

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“That means less than a third of the vote that will be counted ... we might get a rough chance in safe seats but in close seats there will be far too many votes still to be counted to make a really serious check,” he told ABC Radio.

However, initial results show Darren Power leading the mayoral race with 32.9 per cent of the primary votes.

Darren Power and wife Lynne watch the results trickle in on the screen.

Logan’s only woman mayoral candidate Sherry Heath watches the results come in. She is in third place in the initial results.

Second in the race was Brett Raguse at 18 per cent followed by Sherry Heath, the only female in the running with 15.91 per cent.

Ultra conservative candidate Paul Taylor was in fourth place with 14.77 per cent.

It was unknown which booth the first tranche of results came from but was based on 88 votes.

At 7.20pm no other votes had been counted.

Interesting to note, 22. 81 per cent of the votes from that unknown booth were informal.

At the Burrowes State School, Mr Power was unofficially leading with 286 votes followed by Mr Raguse with 245; John Freeman 113; Ms Heath on 111; Stewart Fleming on 92 and Paul Taylor on 84.

Bigger booths would also take longer for a definitive result.

In the newly drawn Division 4, which takes in Logan Village but no longer includes Jimboomba, the former councillor Laurie Koranski was ahead.

Ms Koranski was one of four former councillors who was not charged with fraud in April last year.

Preliminary votes counted for Logan Village without preferences showed Ms Koranski had 297 votes, Vince Sawyer 86, bank manager Kerry Menck 68 and Ely Castella with 43.

In Yarrabilba, Ms Koranski was also leading by a large margin with no preferences counted. She had 323 votes, Ms Sawyer 105, Ms Menck 98 and Ely Castella 66.

The results for mayoral candidates in that division showed her former colleague Mr Power with 164 votes, ahead of Brett Raguse on 117, Sherry Heath on 103, Stewart Fleming on 74 and Paul Taylor on 61.

Former mayor John Freeman had 39 votes along with Allan de Brenni, the father of Sports Minister Mick de Brenni. The Motoring Party’s Ben Musgrave came in with 38 votes.

Laurie Koranski was leading the race in Division 4, which she held before the council was dismissed last year.

Returning Officer for Logan Ray Langler and his wife Mary oversaw booths and counting but were too busy to comment after polls shut.

One of the biggest booths was Shailer Park, where voters from Divisions 3 and 10 were polled.

Voters line up at Shailer Park.

It was likely the next Division 3 councillor will not be known until next week, after five candidates vied for the seat in a close race.

Five candidates competed for the seat, which covers the up-market suburb of Daisy Hill.

Controversy surrounded Mindy Russell and her Russell the Raptor dinosaur being banned from booths this morning by an angry assistant Returning Officer Mary Langler.

A blow-up dinosaur banned from polling stations today.

Competition was tough from Kerry Nielsen, who narrowly missed out on the seat in 2016 to Steve Swenson by seven votes.

Ms Nielsen’s team complained that on Saturday, Ms Russell had been handing out How to Vote cards, which were banned to protect voters from coronavirus.

Initial results, with 4.75 per cent of the primary vote counted showed Ms Russell ahead with 46.15 per cent of the vote, followed by Dave Beard with 19.37 per cent and Deva Naiker with 17.17.

On those initial figures, Ms Nielsen was trailing with 9.75 per cent of the vote.

Division 3 candidate Kerry Nielsen

Interest surrounded Division 10, held for 22 years by the former councillor Darren Power, a known whistleblower and mayoral candidate. Of the four candidates, there was no clear winner.

Division 8 was another contentious seat where results were not expected until next week.

Bickering between the seat’s five candidates resulted in four complaints lodged with the independent Council Election Office.

Jacob Heremaia’s toppled trailer.

Jacob Heremaia, the youngest candidate, was pulled up for parking his trailer in inappropriate places near the Browns Plains pre-polling booth.

His opponents Kylie Slater, Elijah Buol and Peter Brackstone unsuccessfully complained he had used a special Google tool to redirect online traffic to his website.

A complaint that Mr Heremaia used a fake address for his campaign material was upheld by the ICEO.

The battle for the seat of Beenleigh was also intriguing with four close contenders.

Chris Moore, who has links to the Labor Party was up against Karen Murphy, who headed up the Beenleigh-Yatala Chamber of Commerce, and artist Nate Hamon and businessman Axel Pfuhl and long-time resident Belinda Thompson.