Singleton Council pushing ahead despite uncertainty caused by iVote chaos

“Play on” — that’s the call from Singleton’s mayor heading into tonight’s first council meeting of the year despite a cloud still hanging over the official results from December’s election.

“Play on” - that’s the call from Singleton’s mayor heading into tomorrow night’s first council meeting of the year despite controversy still surrounding December’s local government elections.

There’s a chance Singleton could be headed back to the polls later this year after an online voting system locked out thousands of voters and Mayor Sue Moore says it has her fellow councillors concerned.

“We’re totally in unknown waters. I’ve spoken to a couple (councillors) and they’re not very uncomfortable and there’s a lot of people in the community that are not understanding what’s going on,” Cr Moore said.

Singleton Mayor Sue Moore. Picture: Sue Graham

The controversial iVote system, which crashed in the last hour of voting and also affected councils in the Kempsey and Shellharbour areas, has seen the NSW Electoral Commissioner ask the Supreme Court to find “technology assisted voting” laws were not properly followed in local government elections.

According to court documents, the Electoral Commissioner wants a judge to order that “it is not reasonably certain” that 19 councillors would ha

The controversy surrounding the iVote drama during the cal elections has seen the system scrapped for the upcoming by-elections when voters will to the polls in Bega, Monaro, Strathfield and Willoughby this month.

The system allows certain voters — such as postal voters and those outside of their electorate — to use the online system to lodge their choices. Thousands reported being locked out of the system during the December 4 election. For the majority, the NSW Electoral Commission found the votes would not have changed the results, but found the Shellharbour, Kempsey and Singleton results may have been different.

Singleton Shire Council. Picture: Google

Despite the uncertainty, the Singleton mayor says it will be business as usually in the chamber come Tuesday afternoon.

“Councillors were lawfully elected so it’s play on, unless otherwise told. We have to continue as though this will be out council, because we have stuff we need to work through,” Moore said.

Two new councillors were sworn in to Singleton council but things could have turned out differently after iVote system stuff-up.

The Singleton mayor says Covid-19 has pushed voting into electronic means, but believes the iVote was underestimated as to how popular it would be.

“This election was something totally out of the box anyway,” Moore said. “It was like no election campaign I’ve ever done in the last six terms I’ve been elected. We couldn’t stand at polling booths and ask for people to vote for us and give any information out. It made it really challenging. Of course people were looking at other ways to not go to a polling booth.”

The worry of who foots the bill if a new election is called is also of concern.

“The potential financial impact of this shouldn’t fall on us or any other council. We don’t want to think about having another election,” Moore said.