On Saturday 3 May, voters in Western Australia will elect candidates to fill 873 vacancies across the State’s 142 Councils. Transition to a four year term, with half the members of Council retiring every two years, has created more vacancies than in recent elections.
New provisions under the Local Government Act now enable Councils to conduct their polls by postal voting. Eight Councils, Perth, Melville, Vincent, Victoria Park, Cambridge, Armadale, Bunbury and Westonia, will be using postal voting for these elections.
“When trialed for the City of Perth and Towns of Vincent, Victoria Park and Cambridge two years ago, this resulted in a significantly higher voter turnout,” said Cr Ken Pech, President WA Municipal Association. “We will be watching with interest the turnout levels for those running postal ballots.”
Voting in Council elections is not compulsory in Western Australia. In a further change, preferential voting is to be replaced by the ‘first past the post’ system of counting votes. Elections are also scheduled for 60 of South Australia’s Councils during May. Forty five of these Councils will be using postal voting with ballot papers needing to be returned by 6.00 pm on 2 May. All other voting will take place on Saturday 3 May.
With the recent amalgamations in South Australia, some Council elections have been deferred. Elections will be staged for six Councils at the end of June and one in November. For four Councils elections will not take place until May next year. South Australian Councils have the choice of using Preferential or Optional Preferential voting. Similar to WA, voting is also not compulsory for Council elections in this State.
