With the release of the preference
count (see below), some observations can be made. The very low voter
turnout suggests that the contest was of interest to only a minority,
even allowing for the de-motivating influence of the voluntary voting
system at Local Government level.
First preferences decided the election
of Councilor Alexandrides, who gained twice the F.P. votes of any of
his opponents. This achievement cannot in my opinion be a result of
just his ALP or Greek community support (there being a large Greek
nursing home in the ward) but also points to him being a hard working
representative.
Crucially, his second preference vote
was distributed tightly between the eventual winner of the second
position, Campbell, and the defeated councilor Craig Auricht, with
only a slight leaning to Auricht. (56 Auricht, 34 Campbell, all other
candidates 20 Alexandrides second preferences in total)
An informed source close to the ALP
suggested before the election that Campbell was their prefered second
candidate, so in the reasonably even distribution of Alexandrides'
second preferences a case could be made again that Alexandrides
gained a personal support independently of ALP influence.
Auricht, with 452 F.P. votes, made no
headway against Campbell's 523 through all of the following
allocations of preference votes. A solid, but isolated support base
in the community could explain this. The failure of the remaining
'independent' candidates is the only other significant aspect of the
preference distribution. The 'exhausted vote' tally rises alarmingly
in these candidates' tallies – Belosovich, for example, when
excluded, has an exhausted vote tally roughly equal to her preference
distribution to remaining candidates.
The paradoxical lesson to be learnt
might be that 'independent' candidates will need some form of
organised community support to run effectively against the ALP
candidates - rather than appeals to a non-political 'meritocracy of
the elect' as seems to have been the case.
