Election candidate Shorne Sanders takes ECQ to court over Div 8 results

A Qld council election candidate who lost by one vote has pointed the finger at staff shortages, massive queues and ballot paper shortages in his legal action against the Electoral Commission of Qld over the result of the 2024 local government vote.

An appeal has been heard in the Supreme Court by Bundaberg council election candidate Shorne Sanders.

A Bundaberg council election candidate who lost by one vote has pointed the finger at polling booth “chaos”, staff shortages and long queues at the ballot box in his legal action against the Electoral Commission of Qld over the result of the 2024 local government vote.

Bundaberg Division 8 candidate Shorne Sanders lost the election by one vote to incumbent Steve Cooper.

An appeal was heard by the Supreme Court in Bundaberg this week.

The ECQ declared Mr Cooper the winner of Division 8 of the Bundaberg Regional Council election on April 2, 2024, beating Mr Sanders by one vote.

Mr Sanders’ team submitted a 500+ page affidavit to the court.

Barrister David Williams said wait times at some sites on election day were upwards of an hour, and suggested this was because of a staffing issue.

He noted that due to budget restrictions, the ECQ had not put queue commanders in place.

These wait times hindered and possibly denied voters the ability to vote, Mr Williams told the court.

Some voters left before casting their vote, he said.

One volunteer claimed to have heard people saying they would rather be fined than wait in line to vote any longer, the court heard.

Mr Williams said more people turned out at the Branyan polling booth than expected, but there were still 180 absent votes.

After hearing concerns about the wait times Justice James Henry mentioned that voting options other than voting on election day was made clear to locals with options like pre-polling and postage votes available.

He said waiting to vote was known among voting Australians to be a timely process.

“You go to a grocery store and know when it’ll be busy and you know when the roads will be busy,” he said.

“If you have to wait in line for an hour, you have to wait in line for an hour.”

In the application, Mr Sanders alleged ECQ operations affected the Division 8 Bundaberg council election outcome, citing issues for which the body was widely criticised throughout the state post election.

Incumbent Division 8 councillor Steve Cooper (left) requested a vote recount following the election, alleging that scrutineers affiliated with challenger Shorne Sanders put undue pressure on electoral officials.

In an affidavit sworn on April 5, 2024, Mr Sanders said the Avoca polling booth was “disorganised, understaffed and chaotic” and claimed some residents were unable to vote due to a shortage of ballot papers, and others were turned away by ECQ staff after waiting in line for nearly an hour.

Following the election, Mr Sanders said in his affidavit he discovered the computer systems at the polling booth stopped working, resulting in at least one elector being unable to vote.

Mr Sanders’ application also claimed the ECQ had failed to provide electronically assisted voting, which is listed in the Local Government Electoral Act as one of the ways voters can cast their votes, and had failed to post ballot forms to some voters who had registered for postal voting.

As a result of these alleged issues and the one vote margin in the Division 8 result, Mr Sanders claimed the result “does not represent the free and deliberate choice” of voters.

ECQ representative barrister Matthew Hickey from Crown Law, rebutted the claims made by Mr Sanders’ team.

“The mere fact that more people turned up than projected does not in itself indicate that the Electoral Commission failed,” Mr Hickey said.

People leaving the queue was them exercising their right to choose, indicating that the wait was not to “prevent” people from voting, he said.

“The electants who left the queue denied the opportunity in the relevant sense of casting their votes.

“There was no more than a 10 minute wait before the poll closed on that day.”

Mr Hickey said it was difficult to accept that those who left were “denied the opportunity”.

Bundaberg Mayor Helen Blackburn attended Monday’s hearing, with Fraser Coast Mayor George Seymour and Mr Cooper, and on Tuesday Mr Cooper attended, with Division 3 councillor Deborah Keslake and Division 6 councillor Carmen McEneany.

Mr Cooper said he was awaiting the outcome of the hearing, but noted the issues with ECQ’s running of the election included in Mr Sanders’ application were not specific to Bundaberg.

A decision on the hearing will be made on Thursday, July 11.

Cooper opponent Shorne Sanders appeals Division 8 election result
Publican Shorne Sanders running for Bundaberg council

Originally published as Election candidate Shorne Sanders takes ECQ to court over Div 8 results