Janine Lea-Barrett is currently the front runner after the first preference votes were counted on Saturday for Cobar’s 2016 local government election.
As of yesterday and before the second count of preferences was finalised, Mrs Lea-Barrett looked certain of gaining one of the 12 positions on Cobar Shire Council having received the lion’s share of first preference votes.
Of the 15 candidates Mrs Lea-Barrett polled the highest with 398 first preference votes of the 2,295 votes cast for Cobar.
Lilliane Brady (335), Peter Abbott (325), Peter Yench (233) and Julie Payne (222) are also all certain to gain seats.
Harley Toomey (117), Greg Martin (112), Peter Maxwell (105) and Chris Lehmann (104) all polled over 100 votes each and after preferences are added, have a good chance to pick up seats.
Jarrod Marsden (80), Tracey Kings (67) and Bob Sinclair (52) will be looking at preferences to help get them across the line.
Polling the lowest in first preferences votes were Kerry Kings (30), Brooke Seaman (21) and Peter Florance (7) however cannot be ruled out as their positions could improve after preferences voting has been counted.
NSW Electoral Commission Returning Officer Support Officer Steve Middleton said the result of Saturday’s poll will be known today.
Mr Middleton said the votes are tallied by the Proportional Representation Computer Count (PRCC) software program.
He explained all the ballot papers are data entered twice by two different people, and there is no manual counting. He said the computer program will do the tally and also picks up any errors or anomalies.
In addition to tallying Cobar’s votes, the Electoral Commission NSW Cobar office is also responsible for the counts for Bourke and Brewarrina.
Bourke’s count will be finalised and declared tomorrow while Brewarrina’s candidates will have to wait until Friday to find out how they fared.
