COUNTING CONCLUDES

Counting of primary votes in Baw Baw Shire elections has concluded but final results will not be known until 10am tomorrow.

The Victorian Electoral Commission finalised computer vote entries today for the Central, East and West wards.

At 10am tomorrow, the electronic calculation will be activated on the computer that will allocate preferences and determine the three councillors elected in each ward under the proportional voting system.

Three candidates appear to be across the line after achieving the quota of primary votes.

Sitting councillors Danny Goss and Michael Leaney look set to be returned to Central and East Wards respectively while Ben Lucas had a strong victory in the West Ward.

All nine positions will be confirmed by the computer data tomorrow.

At the conclusion of primary vote counting today the tally in each of the three wards was:

Central – Jazmin Tauru 2458, Danny Goss 3432, Joe Gauci 2082, Wayne Farnham 2024 and Farhat Firdous 1587.

East – Peter Kostos 2400, Michael Leaney 3872, Teresa Mitchell 674, Graeme Hart 740, Inge Mitchell 786, Arfa Khan 970 and Darren Wallace 1715.

West – Ben Lucas 5439, Tricia Jones 2367, Annemarie McCabe 1937, Keith Cook 2192.

The largest turnout of votes was in the Central Ward where 82.5 per cent of the 14,031 enrolled voters cast their vote.  In East Ward 82.1 per cent of the 13,580 people enrolled cast their vote; and in West Ward the voter turnout was 79.6 per cent of the 14,983 people enrolled.

VEC electoral manager Phillip Robinson said he expects the poll will be declared tomorrow at noon.

He said a candidate can only request a vote recount if the difference was 10 or less votes.