19 September 2008

Counting at the Local Government Counting Centre (LGCC) at Riverwood in Sydney will continue on Saturday and Sunday as results from the 2008 elections approach finalisation.

The NSW Electoral Commission conducted more than 300 individual elections in 148 council areas across the State, as well as mayoral elections, referendums and polls.

“Candidates and the media need to be patient with the proportional representation counting system which is very complex and cannot be done efficiently by hand on such a large scale,” Mr Barry said.

“I realise this has led to a perception by a small but vocal minority that the counting is taking too long. We have always said we hope to wrap these elections up by no later than Friday, 26 September. Given the number of results so far, we are well ahead of that target.

“Unfortunately the blame game begins when people are waiting for results and have nothing else to report. It is simply untrue that elections on this scale could be counted any faster.”

At Riverwood, 400 contract staff are working two shifts per day to enter ballot paper information into a specially designed computer programme that distributes multiple preferences where a voter has marked more than one preference ‘above and below the line’.

This involves more than 1 million ballot papers that have been transferred to Riverwood.

As of 4pm today:

• 103 of the 165 elections being counted at the LGCC have been finalised or are in progress
• 26 of the 27 mayoral contests have been decided, with Warringah still counting
• 69 of the 74 smaller councils with relatively simple ballot papers have been finalised by the local Returning Officer.

Results are available online at www.elections.nsw.gov.au

Media Contact: Adrian Kerr, NSW Electoral Commission

(02) 9290 5954   adrian.kerr@elections.nsw.gov.au