The race to become Moreton Bay’s new mayor is on a knife’s edge, may take weeks to determine a winner.

It is a two-horse race to become Moreton Bay’s new mayor in the “wierdest election ever” that has been marred by problems.

Polling day at the Pine Rivers State High School on Saturday. There are no volunteers handing out how to vote cards as the normally busy booth is quiet because of the Covid 19 outbreak. (AAP/Image Sarah Marshall)

IT is a two-horse race to become Moreton Bay’s new mayor in an election marred by problems and that many people felt should not have gone ahead at all.

It could be days or even weeks before any official results are known in the mayor race and some of the tighter divisions.

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“It was the weirdest election ever,” incumbent councillor for Division 3 Adam Hain said.

At the time of going to press and with 43.9 per cent of the mayor votes counted, Chris Thompson (30.09 per cent) had edged ahead of rival Peter Flannery (29.7 per cent)

Around the divisions this morning, there were clear frontrunners in Division 1 (Brooke Savige), Division 2 (Mark Booth), Division 3 (Adam Hain), Division 4 (Jodie Shipway), Division 6 (Karl Winchester), Division 8 (Mick Gillam) and Division 11 (Darren Grimwade).

If voting trends continued through the rest of the count, then those candidates would be elected comfortably.

It was a three-horse race in Division 5 between Sandra Ruck, Troy Fernandez, and Peter Parkes.

Division 9 was on a knife’s edge with Mike Charlton just ahead of Cath Tonks by less than 1 per cent, with 50.35 per cent of the vote counted.

In Division 12, Tony Latter had a comfortable lead ahead of Trevor Lewis.

It could be days or even weeks before there were results in the mayor race and some of the tighter divisions.

Prior to Saturday, the election was already being heavily criticised for being held during the coronavirus pandemic and it descended into farce on Saturday night.

A technical glitch meant the Electoral Commission Queensland (ECQ) was unable to update its website with results as they came in.

At 10pm, four hours after polls closed, hardly any results had been released across the state.

An ECQ spokeswoman told News that technical issues were slowing the display of count results on the ECQ website.

In Moreton Bay, just two divisions were showing a small number of votes counted, along with the mayoral race by 10pm Saturday.

On Sunday, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she was disappointed with the ECQ and would order a full review into what happened.

Adding to the confusion, Voters at one polling booth on Saturday were being turned away and told they did not have to vote.

Division 7 Cr Denise Sims was re-elected unopposed and when some division 7 voters turned up at the Griffin State School election booth to vote for their preferred mayor, they were told by ECQ officials that they did not have to vote.

Cr Sims was informed of the issue by a number of residents.

“My daughter went to vote at griffin state school around 8.45am,” on resident wrote on Facebook.

“After waiting for half an hour in the queue, they got turned away by saying you are from Div 7 you don’t need to vote.”

“Thanks to Denise she rang them (ECQ) to complain. My daughter could have gotten the fine even though they went to vote.”

Cr Sims said she was told there was a glitch in system for some booths telling both uncontested division 7 and 10 residents they did not need to vote for mayor/

“It caused a lot of distress for some people,” she said.

“The concern I have is how many didn’t go back to vote?

“I am putting out a post to ask people to contact me if this happened to them.

“I believe this will add to a large no show.”

On Monday morning, there were 15,773 informal votes for mayor, or 11.77 per cent, with less than half the votes counted.