Votes counted

At least two sitting councillors will be returned to Baw Baw Shire and one new councillor will be elected.

In early results filtering from the Victorian Electoral Commission today, Danny Goss and Michael Leaney have achieved the quota of primary votes to be elected for the Central and East wards respectively.

In the West ward, Ben Lucas also is set to be elected.

Counting is continuing and final results are not expected to be known until next Wednesday at the earliest.

Since Monday, “group A” returns have been counted in the three wards which are ballot papers that arrived on or before the close of voting last Friday.

“Group B” returns include votes received in the post this week, votes returned from voters with multiple issues of ballot papers, and all unenrolled votes.

Based on the group A votes in Central Ward, there have been 9774 votes counted, which is 70 per cent of the 14,031 people enrolled to vote.

The figures show: Danny Goss 2983, Jazmin Tauru 1981, Joe Gauci 1739, Wayne Farnham 1722 and Farhat Firdous 1349.

In the East Ward, 8492 votes have been counted, representing 62 per cent of the 13,580 people enrolled.

The figures show: Michael Leaney 3065, Peter Kostos 1820, Darren Wallace 1257, Arfa Khan 729, Inge Mitchell 559, Graeme Hart 551 and Teresa Mitchell 511.

In the West ward, 9547 votes have been counted, representing 64 per cent of the 14,983 people enrolled.

The figures show: Ben Lucas 4303, Tricia Jones 1888, Keith Cook 1787 and Annemarie McCabe 1568.

When more than one person is to be elected for a ward, the VEC uses proportional counting to determine the elected councillors.

Three councillors will be elected in each of Baw Baw’s three wards.

To be elected, candidates must receive a proportion of votes known as a quota.

Any candidate who receives the quota is elected. Votes received over the quota are then passed on to other candidates according to voters’ preferences.

If no candidate achieves the quota, or if there are still vacancies after all the votes over the quota have been passed on, the candidate with the fewest votes is excluded. Their votes are passed on to other candidates according to voters’ preferences. The process is repeated until all vacancies are filled.