2026 Hobart City Council Count

Any numbers that may be noted here based on scrutineering are reports of unofficial sampling - which is not necessarily representative - and are not results.  For official results see the TEC website.

MAYOR (Vacant):  

CALLED 4 pm Thursday Charles Wooley wins from off council.

DEPUTY (Incumbent: Sherlock): 

CALLED 12:20 Saturday Ben Lohberger wins Deputy Mayor subject to retaining his councillor seat, which appears likely

COUNCILLORS (9 recontesting incumbents, 9 vacancies):   

Called off Tuesday scrutineering: Wooley, Kelly, Harvey

Called off 20% count: Posselt

Expected: Lennon

Likely: Dutta

Contest 1: appears to be Lohberger substantially leading Sherlock for one left seat

Contest 2: appears to be Elliot, Behrakis and Zucco for two right seats, incredibly close

Up to three incumbents may lose.

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Introduction

This is my specific page for commentary on the 2026 Hobart council count. Comments on other councils and general themes will be found here. Don't expect to see much on this page on Tuesday; there will be more action on Wednesday.

On Tuesday ballot papers will be removed from envelopes and there may be some computer data entry for some large councils but don't expect official figures.  I may have some indications from scrutineers depending on the pace of counting but the main counting activity for Mayors and Deputies together with the start of data entry is on Wednesday. The TEC expects to have a provisional 20% distribution for Hobart on Wednesday night.  These provisional results are what would happen if only the votes entered to that point were used to decide the election.  Usually most of the candidates who are provisionally elected at the 20% stage end up winning, but often some of those elected to the last few positions change.  It is common to see media misreporting that candidates "elected" in these 20% and 50% interim counts have "won" but it is only when the final, 100%, count is done that the winners are official. 

Where the final few seat results in the interim counts are within 100 votes or so (depending on council) then it's possible the winners will change by random sample error alone.  They can also change if a candidate's victory depends on which of two other candidates is excluded at a certain point.  But there is a more important reason why they can change, and it is this:

Stratification Alert!

It's very important to be aware that interim primary vote figures for the various Councils using automated data entry won't necessarily be unbiased samples of the whole count.  Votes do not reach the Electoral Commission in random order, but rather arrive on particular days, and within each day's sample they may be further stratified by post office of origin (for instance).  There will be political differences between the pool of voters who tend to vote early in the count and those who vote late in the count. Also, campaign events that happen during the postal voting period can have more impact during some parts of the count than others.  

The TEC may well make vigorous efforts to reduce this stratification, but nothing will get rid of it completely.   In 2018 a "green shift" was observed in many (not all) councils, with obviously green/left candidates tending to get a final percentage that was around 1.1 times their vote in the first interim count, and righties tending to drop back accordingly.  In 2022 (the first compulsory election) this wasn't really a thing.

Hence when the TEC release primary figures for various percentages be aware that these are not true representative samples and that past experience shows that substantial changes may occur.  (For instance in 2014 one candidate for one council who was not getting elected on the 20% sample was elected in third place, though that's an extreme example.)  Any result that is even remotely close will therefore not be called on 20% of primaries. 

Please note that I only "call" a seat when I consider it virtually certain that the candidate in question has won.  I ask that people not describe me as having called any seat where I have not explicitly used the word "called" for it.  A summary of how I think the counts are going appears at the top of the page.  Updates in each section scroll to the top.   

Hobart Lord Mayor

7:50 Wooley's winning margin is 55-45.  

4:05 Bill Harvey is going to get his moment in the lead and may perhaps cross 10000 on the Posselt throw. But with a lead looking like only 850 and having seen the action on Kelly's votes in the councillor counts there is no way this holds off nearly ten times as many Kelly votes. CALLED Charles Wooley wins vacant Hobart Lord Mayoralty from off council. (This has never happened in Hobart before.)

3:45 Kelly is not gaining on Wooley on Posselt at all. We are just waiting to see how far Harvey will be ahead of Wooley.

2:05 After the Dutta exclusion, Wooley leads Kelly by 673 and has clearly seen off the Kelly threat, Kelly will finish third. After Posselt Harvey will go to the lead and it might be a lead like 2000 but it is hard to see even 3000 being enough. We have seen this movie before. I am expecting that I will call this race for Wooley early in the Kelly throw. 

1:10 Wooley's lead is 582.  Dutta and Posselt have 7918 votes and Kelly would have to close the gap entirely off those but most will be going to Harvey and some will exhaust.  Harvey is just over 1500 behind Kelly but I suspect he will actually take the lead (to Greens calls of "stop the count!").  It will just not be a big enough lead.  

11:30 It's that sort of time in the count where scrutineers look at the piles in the distributions and over and over say "not enough".  Kelly appears to be gaining on Lennon but it's hard to see it being even 200 votes.  After that any gains would have to be off Dutta and Posselt, and I am not sure Kelly would make any gains off either.  [Update 11:55 - well I was wrong, Kelly actually gained 260 but that's still not enough either.]

10:35 Kelly will gain about 84 on Wooley off Zucco but that isn't nearly enough. To win he will need to gain hundreds off Lennon who is out next and then gain more off Dutta and Posselt, a lot of whom will flow to Harvey. Wooley looking very strong now.

Thurs 10:00 Bloomfield exclusion somewhat favoured Kelly and Wooley over the others and increased Wooley's lead over Kelly by one vote. Now the crucial Zucco exclusion and I would say that while Kelly may be gaining here it does not look like a big gain, which will make things very challenging.

11:15 Unknown to me they did do one more throw of Ashdown before knocking off.  Wooley again did better off a left candidate gaining 102 to Kelly's 54.  Wooley now leads Kelly by 922.  Harvey is already over Kelly into second.  Bloomfield is next and that will be an interesting one, one we don't have much information on.  

5:59 However Wooley unofficially gains 13 off Kelly from Bari and the mountain gets a little steeper. Exclusions to come: Ashdown, Bloomfield, Zucco, Dutta, Lennon, and presumably Posselt. Kelly probably won't get much if any help from the left (though he might get some from anti cable car voters) and needs a lot of it from Lennon, Zucco (these two apparently will help a bit) and Bloomfield.

5:42 Unofficially I have Wooley 861 ahead on primaries. Kelly closes by 6 off McShane. If the great Kelly charge can be a thing, here it begins. Bari being excluded.

3:50 I don't know if the issue with the 100 votes from earlier is fixed yet but with the ib person votes added I expect something like Wooley 19.1 Kelly 16.2 Harvey 15.7 Posselt 11.6 Lennon 8.2 Dutta 8.2 Zucco 8 Bloomfield 6.2 Ashdown 4.7 Bari 1.6 McShane 0.6. Making Kelly's task a little bit harder again.

1:55 I had thought the votes being added up for LM were all of them but they're not; there are still votes coming out of envelopes and still the overall picture can move. But while the votes coming in now are quite left I don't think the number being added is huge. The extras being added are in person handins which will skew left.

12:40   Looks like Wooley's lead over Kelly is about 2.7% (+/- 0.4% as there is a routine counting issue being resolved) with about 43.5% of preferences to throw before the 3CP point. That's not impossible to close but challenging with votes spraying, going to Harvey and exhausting. Advantage Wooley?

11:45 While I am in a VEC media briefing another scrutineer has extremely helpfully indicated that it looks like the Wooley pile is 14% larger than the Kelly pile, not 6% larger in the table previously seen, so that's suggesting a lead of something over 2%.  A significant lead but not unbridgeable.  Also with both these two clear of Harvey on primaries (even though I think Harvey will knock one of them out) I don't see how the left can win this.  The new Lord Mayor will be a green-tinged municipal tory, I just cannot tell you which one!

11:10 Rough unofficial totals from one of the five vote throwing tables Wooley 18.6% Kelly 17.6% Harvey 15.8% Posselt 10.4% Lennon 8.9% Zucco 8.4% Dutta 7.5% Bloomfield 6.0% Ashdown 4.6% Bari 1.8% McShane 0.5%.  I suspect Wooley might actually end up a bit further ahead on primaries than this, maybe a few percent.  With the combined left vote around 40% here I really think this is Wooley vs Kelly. I have heard from other scrutineers that Kelly may also be doing well off Lennon as well as Zucco.  He's close enough if he's good enough.

Wed 10:15 Votes are being thrown into boxes and the primary vote order seems to be Wooley, Kelly and Harvey close then Posselt. Ashdown prefs seem to be favouring Harvey over Posselt. If Posselt is knocked out his votes strongly boost Harvey and I suspect Harvey is going to make the final two. Kelly may do better than Wooley off Zucco (the obvious North Hobart vote) but not greatly so. Harvey will need flows on the left to be a lot stronger than on the right to win. I have looked at whether right preferences may exhaust more but so far doesn't seem to be the case 

Tuesday 11:15 My sampling didn't get much further today with Kelly dropping back a little but still ahead.  However on Wooley's strengthening on my councillor sampling late in the night I would not be surprised if Wooley is actually ahead.  In the councillor count I am seeing abundant 1 Kelly 2 Wooley and 1 Wooley 2 Kelly strengthening the case that if one of them is knocked out (which I now lean towards happening) the other wins.  Also if what I have seen on the councillor ballots is representative my previous sample had Harvey low and he could well come up from it.

Tuesday 6:35 I have sampled 500 votes (we'll see how representative these are later) and Kelly leads in my sample but only on 20% and narrowly from Wooley 16.4 followed by Posselt 13 and Harvey 11.8. Earlier it was looking like a right v right top two, maybe less so now but so far the right looks good ... how representative will this be?

Hobart Deputy

NOTE: the winner of this contest must also hold their councillor seat.

2:42 It's over, Lohberger gained more than four thousand and won by 3439 with 56.87% 2CP.  Close to a 12-point better left-right margin than Lord Mayor - but in one case it's an independent vs a Green and in another it's a well known unofficial Liberal vs a left independent with some crossover appeal.  I will have more to say about related themes when the councillor count numbers are final.

Saturday 12:20 And as with Lord Mayor, Behrakis has not gone as far ahead as he might have, getting just under half of Elliot's preferences.  The lead is 899 and Lohberger will win by thousands.  CALLED.  This is the first time the Greens have missed the final two in the Deputy race since 2005 when they did not contest it.  In that time Helen Burnet won it three times.

Saturday 10:45 And on it goes.  Lohberger now 562 ahead of Sherlock after Wallace.  It's just like the Lord Mayor count in reverse; Behrakis might go 2000 or so ahead off Elliot, whatever it is it just won't be enough as Lohberger will get an enormous flow off Sherlock.  I doubt that Sherlock will even get 562 off Elliot let alone outscore Lohberger on them.  

Saturdaty 9:50 Dale's preferences have been thrown and in a rather stunning outcome given Dale is on the right Lohberger has got more than either Behrakis or Elliot.  Lohberger leads Sherlock by 275, I expect him to gain on Elliot so Wallace is the last chance for Sherlock to make big gains.  

5:20 Johnstone was the last throw of the day and Lohberger has overtaken Sherlock (Behrakis is narrowly back in the lead).  It appears to me that Lohberger is in a rather strong position here, however the exclusion of Wallace as the remaining left candidate will be critical to see if Sherlock can make a somewhat unexpected gain.  Stumps day 4.

4:15 Lohberger is gaining significantly on Sherlock off Johnstone.  At least 50 I'd expect.

3:45 Sherlock will resume the lead off Campbell.  However while she is gaining on Lohberger off Campbell, it's only about 34 votes net.  Sherlock's lead over Lohberger is about 164.   Exclusions to come are Dale, Johnstone, Wallace and Elliot.  These will push Behrakis to a large lead and eliminate one of Sherlock or Lohberger in third. Dale and Johnstone are Liberals and Wallace is Labor, Lohberger is a left indie who appeals to some conservatives on issues like the UTAS move, and Sherlock is a Green.   It's politically logical that Lohberger would gain on all these exclusions and indeed he does get more than Sherlock off the three minor candidates in the councillor exclusions for what that is worth.  However neither will get much off Dale and perhaps not Johnstone either.  The pool of left votes for whoever makes the final two against Behrakis is larger than the pool of right votes, and a lot of this comes from quite a few votes I saw in cutup that had Kelly or Wooley for Lord Mayor with Lohberger for Deputy.  

2:45 Behrakis will take the lead off Alderton but more significantly Lohberger is continuing to catch Sherlock. Sherlock could well get the gains back off Campbell however.

2:15 Final primaries have Sherlock 5449 Behrakis 5416 Lohberger 5251 Elliot 4004. I don't expect the winner today, indeed by the end of this count we could know who of these are councillors [EDIT: That won't happen, Councillor count is likely to run to Monday or Tuesday]. Connor exclusion being thrown.

Friday 12:00 Remaining votes are being counted and my estimate for the votes to be added today is that Behrakis has about 200 more than Sherlock and 300 more than Lohberger. With the votes from last night added including the lot dominated by Sherlock I expect Sherlock to narrowly lead Behrakis and Lohberger with Elliot over 1000 off the pace. If this is true this is good for Lohberger who I think could well win from third if the primary vote margins are modest.  He is currently also best placed to hold his councillor seat.

3:45 Another set of a few thousand was wildly favourable to Sherlock who had as much as her main rivals put together. I think these could have been the drop-in votes but the fact that these even exist bodes well for Sherlock both in this one and the councillor ballot.

Thurs 2:40 The Deputy count has commenced! In the first 1000 Sherlock unofficially leads Behrakis by 4% and leads Lohberger by about 6%. I expect these leads could at least hold to final primaries. If the final two is Sherlock/Behrakis then there are about equal numbers of right and left preferences available. Lohberger does tend to draw some preferences from the right so it's not impossible he'd catch up. 

Tues 11:55 The three main contenders have improved in the councillor count so the risk of the most painful/funniest thing ever (depending on your position) happening is probably less now.  

Tues 6:35 I'm not technically a scrutineer of this count (if someone, anyone, wants to whack me a scrutineering form that would be great - EDIT: thanks to candidates who did this or offered to do so, I will now be street legal for this count tomorrow) but I can report that the masked and anonymous hive mind of the scrutineering forces has detected a surprising new contender ... THE MYSTERY KNIGHT. At the moment nobody seems to be getting a lot of votes here (all under 20%) and while Behrakis has a very slight lead in our samples on Sherlock and Lohberger (who could easily get into the final two and even win on preferences from my sample) with Elliot also not far behind, NONE of these yet look safe in the councillor ballot. So whoever wins will be hanging in for the 100% button press to see if they have two jobs or none.  If the unthinkable happens, the new DLM gets elected round the table with a nice dose of Rats in the Ranks sure to do wonders for the new council's harmony.

Hobart Councillors (9 to be elected)

Friday night A post by Thomas Chick has reminded me that the large council counts aren't likely to finish til Monday or Tuesday so a weekend of suspense for the candidates!  

Friday 4:55 Unknown unknowns!  There is a widespread rumour (which I have some basis for considering credible, though not for being certain it is true) that John Kelly is considering quitting his council seat.  If he does, his recount would be very likely to elect the loser of the final seat fight between Elliot, Zucco and Behrakis.  That is significant because Kelly is anti cable car while the others are likely to support it.  

Elliot is facing potential expulsion from the council for a third suspension.  She is still free to take and hold her seat (if she wins) until such time as her appeal fails (if that occurs) and the Minister then decides to dismiss her.  There is a lot of debate about the meaning of "may" in the legislation that states that the Minister may dismiss a councillor with three suspensions - what are the reasons why the Minister might not ever do this?  

Thursday 5:10 The 50% count is up and surprisingly given the 20% where he was looking quite strong Zucco is now losing to Elliot, while less surprisingly Lohberger now beats Ashdown. Examining ... in this one Ashdown is now out before Bloomfield, and more at a point where I'd expect, by 46 votes.  Bloomfield then drops out 133 behind Elliot (this suggests that it's now very hard for either of these to still win). Sherlock is then out and is nearly 100 behind Elliot and Behrakis.  Dutta has done well off Ashdown so is by this stage well up the road.  Ashdown's exclusion is also good for Lohberger who now gets elected off Sherlock's surplus cascading off Dutta.  Lennon is way ahead of Elliot, Behrakis and Zucco and crosses leaving all these three short of quota and Elliot beats Zucco by 21.32 votes while Behrakis beats Zucco by ONE POINT SEVEN FIVE VOTES.  So we are now 21 votes off an all-male council and the alternative is a council where the only female councillor is Elliot.  I'm not sure Sherlock is gone yet - if the hand-in votes are not yet added this is close enough to perhaps still get her over Lohberger.

Thursday morning: I suspect we get a 50% count tonight so the 20% count will soon be history.  It is worth noting that as well as the way Ashdown currently wins being incredibly lucky, Dutta bolts in in seventh but he is actually close to losing too. He benefits for obvious reasons from Sherlock going out, but if Ashdown goes out instead that might save Sherlock and leave Dutta in trouble or in a close contest with Lohberger.  Behrakis too only just wins, outlasting Elliot by 15 votes, which might even change if Ashdown were to go out at this point and before either.  Zucco however seems to be reasonably clear of the fray in this one and is in a good position.

7:50 I hadn't noticed it before but in this provisional count Hobart is three votes away from an all male council!  Two of the three incumbent women had controversial terms.  For Sherlock, a part of her problem is that Harvey and the minor Greens are not doing quite as well as in my sampling, but the bigger problem is that she is only getting about a third of the preferences when the final fellow Green Trenton Hoare is excluded, which is remarkably low.  How much of this is down to her recent arrival in the Greens and how much to snackgate is difficult to say.  

Wed 5:07 A sensational 20% count with Behrakis and Ashdown (!!) provisionally winning and FOUR incumbents (Lohberger, Elliot, Sherlock and Bloomfield) provisionally out. That would be 5-4 for the right but not a majority for the cable car. I will study this very soon. 

I accidentally deleted some analysis here but to recap it Bloomfield is excluded narrowly ahead of Elliot; I am not sure if it makes any difference if it's the other way round. The insane bit is that Ashdown beats Sherlock by 6 votes then narrowly outlasts Elliot then ends up beating Lohberger by 3. The chance that at least one of these falls over is very high unless the count shifts in Ashdown's favour. So this may not all happen.

Wed 2:40 The in person votes being added are likely to drag things somewhat to the left compared with my sampling, boosting whatever chance there is of the left still holding 5. This can't be easy though as Dutta and Lohberger will have few preference sources and a few strong right candidates would be excluded.

Tues 11:20 With more sampling I am now up to a sample of 1000 and on this basis I am calling Wooley and Kelly who I am tracking to break quota, and Harvey who I am tracking to be close to quota but doesn't really need to be.  Posselt is now a strong fourth in my sampling and I expect him to be re-elected but have not called this yet.  Beyond that it's a mess.  I have Lennon ahead of the rest but not by as much as earlier, and I have Lohberger, Sherlock, Dutta, Behrakis, Zucco, Elliot and Bloomfield all extremely close together on primaries with Ashdown not far off these either.  

However - and an irony given his past form in crawling across the finish line - Zucco appears on my sampling to do well off Wooley and Kelly, while Sherlock is bound to benefit from nearly half a quota in minor Greens votes assuming Harvey crosses quickly.  That may lift Sherlock out of that pack and Zucco to the head of the rest of it, but we will see.  Even 1000 votes is quite a small sample for this one.  

Tues 5:30 I've been sampling during the unfolding of the ballot papers and off a sample of 500 the right seems to be doing rather well (also the case in the mayor ballots but I will update with more sampling), at this stage Wooley and Kelly would both get quota if my sampling was accurate. The following are so far also doing well in my sampling: Harvey, Posselt, Lennon. Ignoring the impact of preferences I then have a lot of candidates fighting for at least four seats: Behrakis, Bloomfield, Elliot, Dutta, Sherlock, Zucco, Lohberger and perhaps Ashdown. But 500 is not a big sample and it is always possible the votes seen so far are stratified.

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RANT: SLOPPY VOTING - Sheesh guys and guyettes bang the rocks together! For such an engaged city the quality of some of the votes I've seen today was effing embarrassing and some of you lot should be done for wasting TEC time in coming days. Get in stocks in the sea you people who think voting 1 on the Lord Mayor paper them 2 on the Deputy paper is clever, they're different elections!  (Maybe they should come separately in the pack but then some of you would lose them up your nose or something.) Not far behind can go the people who think the object of voting is to write your 1 so that as uncannily as possible resembles a 7 or even a 2. I saw one LM paper with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and a thing that was probably meant to be a 1 but could as easily be a 7. I'd actually call that informal; how do we know the 1 wasn't on the DLM paper?

Anyway best informal to come that I saw was a vote that went 1 Posselt 2 Ashdown 29 Behrakis 30 Bloomfield 31 Zucco 32 Elliot. Yes, "number at least 5 boxes to make your vote count" but, um, not like that