Antonio returned to office in landslide victory

MAYOR Paul Antonio has been returned for his third term as leader of the Toowoomba region.

MAYOR Paul Antonio has been returned for his third term as leader of the Toowoomba region.

While the result was yet to be officially declared by the Electoral Commission of Queensland at the time of going to print yesterday, with just shy of 70% of the electorate's votes counted, Cr Antonio was sitting pretty on 72.53% of the tally.

Chris Meibusch, who conceded to Cr Antonio just before 10am yesterday, had 19.22% and Douglas Doelle was nudging 8.25%.

Cr Antonio said he was humbled to have been returned for a third term, and was ready to jump headfirst into the work of managing the impact coronavirus was having on the region.

"I drove the streets today. Toowoomba's deserted," he said.

"We're going to have to do everything we can and work with the other two levels of government to preserve business as we know it, as we have known it for many years, in the Toowoomba region.

"We need to preserve those businesses, and there is power within our budget and it is within our capacity to do that."

Meanwhile, counting of councillor votes continues.

Last night, with 2.66% of the electorate's ballots counted, Rebecca Vonhoff was in the lead on 1965 votes, with Cr Carol Taylor in second place on 1734 votes.

Following closely behind were Megan O'Hara Sullivan (1670), Cr Geoff McDonald (1669), Cr Nancy Sommerfield (1656), Cr James O'Shea (1625), Cr Bill Cahill (1608), Melissa Taylor (1470), Kerry Shine (1451), and Tim McMahon (1012).

Joy Mingay was in 11th place on 960 votes.

We'll update the two graphs below as the election results start rolling in. If you are an app user, click here to see the councillor results and here to see the mayoral results.

Councillor results:

Mayoral results: