On Saturday 27 March 2004, Local Government elections were held in Queensland. In addition to all Councillor positions being contested, for all councils the position of Mayor was also decided by direct election.
Local Government elections in Queensland are held every four years. Voting is compulsory and based on first past the post or optional preferential voting. Voting is largely in person at polling booths or by postal ballot, depending on the local needs and practical requirements to conduct elections.
On polling night the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) ran an Election Tally Room. As the results from across the State were being provided by each Council’s Returning Officer, they were posted on the LGAQ web site.
Each Returning Officer had a password to access the web site and recorded results as they became available. From this, LGAQ could immediately provide statewide and regional trends, and issue media updates throughout the evening.
With Polling Booths closed at 6pm, between the peak time of 8.30pm and 9.30pm, some 300,000 hits to the LGAQ site were recorded. Based on the results on LGAQ’s site, Channel 7 also ran a scroll bar of these for its Queensland viewers throughout the evening.
“It was a huge success all round,” said Greg Hoffman, LGAQ’s Director Policy and Representation. “We did quite a lot of promotion about the elections and tally room in the lead up to election day and have proved that people are very interested. ABC TV gave us significant promotion with good footage of an interview conducted in the tally room on the Friday evening prior to the elections.
“The web site information and tally room was set up inhouse and is a credit to our Policy and IT staff.
“We know it is an Australian first and are not aware that anything similar has been done overseas. We see it as an essential part of Local Government being a partner in our process of governance to be at the leading edge in democratic government.”
Greg Hoffman said that media and community interest had been overwhelming. On the following Monday, he took 30 calls from various media outlets.
