NSW Electoral Commission statement on Legislative Council vote count
In early 2018, the NSW Electoral Commissioner determined that seven Legislative Council groups would be counted concurrently with the Legislative Assembly on election night, as part of the first preference count for both Houses. The seven groups were chosen on the basis that they currently, or previously had, held seats in the Legislative Council.
This determination was made in the interests of workplace health and safety and to provide the voters of New South Wales with an early indication of the initial Legislative Council count on election night. In light of these workplace health and safety considerations, if this change had not been made there would have been no Legislative Council count conducted on election night.
NSW Electoral Commissioner John Schmidt said that it needs to be remembered that the vast majority of election officials involved in the first preference count process are temporary staff drawn from the general community.
"I make no apologies for doing everything I can to provide these staff with a safe working environment, which includes safe working hours on election day," Mr Schmidt said.
Registered parties were advised of this new process in a NSW Electoral Commission bulletin released on 11 May 2018. The process was further presented at briefings for registered parties which were conducted by the NSW Electoral Commission in June 2018 and November 2018. The change in process was also detailed in the Candidates Handbook for the NSW State election. This Handbook has been made available to all parties and candidates and is also available on the NSW Electoral Commission website.
Five days before the election, on 18 March 2019 one registered party enquired with the NSW Electoral Commission whether it was possible for the process to be changed. The party was advised that, as all relevant policies and procedures, including training for election officials, were already in place, the NSW Electoral Commission was unable to change the process at this late stage.
Allocating additional resources at this time in an attempt to change the current process would lead to disruption and confusion in count centres and could result in a delay in determining the election result.
The check count of the 5 million Legislative Council ballot papers commenced on Sunday, 24 March. The NSW Electoral Commission will, from Tuesday, 26 March 2019, progressively report to its website the check count results for all 20 groups and all 346 candidates that appear below the line on the Legislative Council ballot paper.
It is important to note that the change has not affected the estimated date of the distribution of preferences, or the Declaration of Results for the Legislative Council which is still scheduled to occur on Friday, 12 April.
The joint media release sought information concerning 'the process undertaken to secure the 'Other' ballot papers from interference'. The NSW Electoral Commissioner assures political participants and the public that the same level of security is applied to all ballot papers during the count process.
The NSW Electoral Commissioner, John Schmidt, met with representatives of the minor parties and candidates this afternoon. After listening to their concerns, he agreed that the current Legislative Council count process would be reviewed in consultation with political participants before the next state general election.
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