Johnston Team Routs The Old Guard In Glenorchy Council Elections

In tonight's counting we've seen the sequel to the Kafkaesque demise of the previous Glenorchy City Council, and it's worth briefly explaining what has gone on, if only so that people understand what a provisional distribution is.

Kristie Johnston has been re-elected Mayor with 86.4% of the vote to 13.6% for sole opponent Steven King.  That election has been declared.  I cannot remember a larger win in a mayoral contest in Tasmania, but there has probably been one.  There have been larger wins in Legislative Council contests sometimes.

Matt Stevenson has been elected Deputy Mayor with 56.4% of the primary vote in a field of six.  That election too has been declared.  The runner-up, Simon Fraser on 13.8%, has finished ahead of two incumbent aldermen.  Incumbent Deputy, Harry Quick, has polled 9.6%, a 20-point swing against his 2014 result.  I am unsure if any incumbent deputy has ever polled such a low primary vote in such a contest in Tasmanian council voting.

What is not finished yet is the aldermanic count.  The TEC has released a sample result based on the counting of 45% of the ballots counted.  Also, those ballots have yet to be checked by being entered again.  This is labelled as a "possible result" only, because if the breakup of the 55% of ballots not yet entered is different then the results may be a bit different.  When this process was introduced in 2014, we reliably saw that the candidates near the top of the winner lists always won, but the interim winners in the last few positions didn't always all make it.