Lord Mayor Nick Reece on course to win election, according to fresh analysis
Lord Mayor Nick Reece is on course to retain the city’s top job after a rollercoaster four-month campaign, according to fresh analysis.
Victoria
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Melbourne Lord Mayor Nick Reece is on course to retain the city’s top job, according to fresh analysis of tens of thousands of ballots.
The election analysis, conducted for candidates and obtained by the Herald Sun, reveals that the flow of preferences is set to deliver Mr Reece and his running mate Roshena Campbell a comfortable victory.
While thousands of votes are yet to be counted, the review of more than 63,000 ballot papers suggests Mr Reece will defeat the Liberal Party 62-38 on a two-ticket preferred basis.
Carlton great Anthony Koutoufides had been considered a chance to steal victory from Mr Reece following the distribution of preferences, but the numbers suggest he cannot leapfrog the Greens and the Liberals.
Out of the 11 lord mayoral tickets, the Animal Justice Party is the first to be knocked out, followed by Voices for Melbourne, Rip Up the Bike Lanes and businessman Gary Morgan, according to the analysis.
From there, current councillor Jamal Hakim is next to be knocked out, followed by Labor and former deputy lord mayor Arron Wood.
Of the final four tickets left standing, Mr Reece records 33.1 per cent of the vote, followed by the Liberals (23.6 per cent), the Greens (22.9 per cent) and Koutoufides (20.2 per cent).
Koutoufides’ preferences are then distributed and largely split between Mr Reece and the Liberals, knocking the Greens out of the race in third place.
Mr Reece, who became Lord Mayor in July after Sally Capp stepped down, finishes with 62.1 per cent of the vote over the Liberals with 37.8 per cent.
Thousands of ballots posted on Thursday and Friday last week remain en route to the Victorian Electoral Commission and can be received and accepted until Friday.
While they may change the order in which candidates are eliminated, the voter trends are unlikely to vary greatly and affect the final result.
The Herald Sun understands the analysis was conducted using a computer algorithm and was based on the recorded preferences of more than 63,000 voters, which were collated by the VEC and distributed to candidates.
One election insider told the Herald Sun it was clear that a large portion of voters ignored the candidates’ how-to-vote guides, which reflected the preference deals struck between them.
On Tuesday, Mr Wood conceded that he and running mate Erin Deering would not win.
The Team Wood website has already been shut down.
On the separate councillor ballot, the Liberals’ strong showing could deliver the party two of the nine positions, a separate analysis has revealed.
But the party’s second spot could be lost to Labor’s Davydd Griffiths.
Team Kouta’s Gladys Liu, the Greens’ Olivia Ball, Team Wood’s Philip Le Liu and Residents 3000 president Rafael Camillo are favoured to get elected.
Team Reece also should get two spots – Kevin Louey and Mark Scott – while a surprise winner is Innovate Melbourne candidate Andrew Rowse.
Under the preferential voting system, once primary votes are distributed, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes are allocated to the next preferred candidate – where the voter has put No.2.
After this, the totals are counted again and the next lowest-scoring candidate is eliminated and so on and so forth. This process continues until one candidate receives an absolute majority of votes (more than 50 per cent).
Since Monday, more than 63,000 primary votes for lord mayor and deputy lord mayor have been tallied by VEC officials, overseen by scrutineers from each ticket.
According to the VEC, 136,563 voters are on the roll in the City of Melbourne.
In 2020, more than 90,000 ballots were returned from across the municipality.
The official result will be published by the VEC on November 7.
Originally published as Lord Mayor Nick Reece on course to win election, according to fresh analysis
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