THERE was still a lot of counting to be done by the time of our deadlines on Tuesday morning, but there was one stand out leader in the Bombala Council Election so far, and that was our much loved Mayor, Bob Stewart.
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While the distribution of preferences had not begun, initial results showed that Cr Stewart had secured 586 first preference votes. That’s an impressive 40.03% of the 1,464 formal votes counted.
NSW Electoral Commission figures showed that Bill Bateman of Delegate was the next closest candidate in the first preference stakes, receiving 239 (16.33% of the formal votes), while Sue Haslingden secured 153 (10.45%).
In descending order of first preference votes we then saw Brad Yelds with 98, Diane Hampshire with 88, Steve Goodyer with 77, Alan Gillespie-Jones with 59, Derek Glover with 51, Joe Ingram with 41, Paul Gimbert with 38 and Chris Philbrick with 34.
The results available to us on Tuesday morning were far from conclusive, however, and the formal declaration of poll will not be made until this coming Friday, September 14.
The Electoral Commission did reveal that the total number of electors enrolled to vote in the Bombala Council Election was 1,829, with the voter turn out being 81.47%.
All of our polling places were thus well attended on Saturday, with most voters going to the polls with some enthusiasm for electing our next batch of Bombala Councillors.
For the first time in Bombala voters were selecting seven Councillors to serve the term, rather than the traditional nine.
Readers are asked to note that not all postal, pre-poll and declaration votes had been entered into the system by our deadlines, and the full number of votes in the count were not yet finalised.
Full results will of course be included in next week’s Bombala Times, but readers can keep informed on the Bombala Council Election count through live updates posted on the NSW Electoral Commission website, www.votensw.info