Kate Winders was yesterday declared elected to Cobar Shire Council following a close by-election.
The vote, held to fill the role of councillor left vacant by the departure of Greg Martin, came down to the distribution of preferences with just 63 votes the difference between Mrs Winders and Ben Hewlett.
Mrs Winders finished the election with a total of 835 first preference votes, just behind Ben Hewlett with 892 votes.
The third candidate, John Stingemore, polled 535 first preference votes and was knocked out of the running following the counting of all pre-poll, postal and election day votes.
Following the distribution of Mr Stingemore’s second preference ballot papers, Mrs Winders finished with 1,059 votes to Mr Hewlett’s 996.
A total of 2,336 votes were counted in total with 74 determined to be informal votes.
Pre-poll voting proved popular with Cobar residents, with a total of 1,413 people turning up to vote before Saturday’s official election day.
A further 640 people voted at the Cobar Public School polling booth; 96 people voted in Euabalong and 37 voted in Murrin Bridge.
Mrs Winders polled strongly in Euabalong and Murrin Bridge with 58 votes from the two compared with Hewlett’s 34 votes and Stingemore’s 31.
