Votes are now being counted for the Monash Council elections for 2016. I will progressively update this post over the next 24 hours as votes are counted and results become clear. Latest updates are up the top.
3.00 pm, Sun 30 Oct – All set for the button press
Ok, well that’s it for all the counting in Monash for another four years. The only thing that remains is the button press which is scheduled to be at 4.00 pm today.
Here are my final predictions along with the order I think candidates will be elected in:
Glen Waverley Ward
- Geoff Lake
- Toss up between Chloe Fu and Lynnette Saloumi and then Gayle Nicholas
Mount Waverley Ward
- Brian Little
- Rebecca Paterson
- MT Tsoi (favoured) over Raff Ciccone and then Darren Paone
Mulgrave Ward
- Paul Klisaris
- Shane McCluskey
- Robert Davies
Oakleigh Ward
- Theo Zographos
- Stuart James
- Close between Josh Fergeus and Arthur Athanasopoulos and then Bill Pontikis
Good luck to all. Keep an eye on Twitter for the results.
2.30 pm, Sun 30 Oct – voting completed in Oakleigh Ward
This is the final update I have received from the count in Oakleigh. Apparently there are 137 votes missing from this tally which were being reconciled at the end of the count so these are not the final figures – but 137 votes won’t change these various percentages.
In the wash up, these final results match very closely the sampling done by scrutineers on last Saturday and Thursday. Fergeus finished on 12.8% vs 12.5% predicted, Athanasopoulos 8.5% vs 8.1% predicted and Pontikis 7.3% vs 7.3% predicted.
While I have seen some sampling of the preference flows, I think this is is conclusive. Watch who goes out first between Pontikis or Athanasopoulos. If it is the former then there Athanasopoulos will have a chance (far from definite) of over-taking Fergeus for the last position. If Athanasopoulos goes out first (I think unlikely) then Fergeus should comfortably beat Pontikis unless there is an extremely sticky Greek vote flowing between Athanasopoulos and Pontikis. I think it will be Athanasopoulos v Fergeus and close.
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| NEWBY, David | 1688 | 6.9% |
| MANTON, Jessica | 1184 | 4.8% |
| JAMES, Stuart | 2056 | 8.4% |
| ZOGRAPHOS, Theo | 4661 | 19.0% |
| SOMERVILLE, Jenny | 687 | 2.8% |
| HOSKING, Nga | 1317 | 5.4% |
| NALBANT, Tony | 240 | 1.0% |
| DONTAS, Alex | 472 | 1.9% |
| JOSHI, Archna | 751 | 3.1% |
| MURCHIE, Anna | 423 | 1.7% |
| PONTIKIS, Bill | 1789 | 7.3% |
| GUO, Weisheng | 1074 | 4.4% |
| DUNN, Warwick | 636 | 2.6% |
| SCOTTO, Anna | 818 | 3.3% |
| ATHANASOPOULOS | 2083 | 8.5% |
| WIJESINGHE, Fairley | 410 | 1.7% |
| CRESIA, Frank | 610 | 2.5% |
| PETRIDIS, Bill | 452 | 1.8% |
| FERGEUS, Josh | 3139 | 12.8% |
| TOTAL | 24490 |
11.30 am, Sun 30 Oct – my predictions for the 2nd spot in Glen Waverley Ward
Further to my analysis below at 9.00 am today on the second and final Glen Waverley Ward spot, here are my predictions on how preferences will play out at 4.00 pm when the button is pushed by the Returning Officer.
As I made clear yesterday, this is very tight for the final spot. It is between three candidates: Gayle Nicholas, Lynnette Saloumi and Chloe Fu.
There will be two critical junctures of this count.
The first is when either Nicholas or Male is eliminated and the second one, unsurprisingly, will be the final count between the last two remaining candidates with the higher placed one being declared elected.
The reason why the Nicholas v Male battle is critical is because if Nicholas can stay ahead of Male (she is currently on 8.8% versus Male’s 7.3%) then she will likely win. Based on estimated preference flows observed in a small sample of votes taken yesterday, at the point where one of her, Saloumi or Fu are to be excluded, Nicholas is likely to be around 300 votes ahead of Saloumi which would see Saloumi eliminated and then Nicholas elected over Fu by around 500 words in the final split.
However, I don’t think Nicholas is likely to stay above Male.
While she leads him on primary votes, the difference is only 1.5% or 237 votes. Male benefits from my 3% surplus (I have preferenced to him second) and from any donkey vote flowing from the 5.7% of votes on Devendran who sits at the top of the ballot paper just above him. He is also getting preferences from Chow (5.8%). No other candidate other than Saloumi who sits safely ahead of Nicholas is preferencing to Nicholas before any of the other candidates.
Based on preference sampling, my votes appeared to be holding strongly with 60-70% flowing through my ticket. While Chow’s votes are not flowing through to Male (and are unsurprisingly favouring Fu), this gives Male a reasonable chance of going above Nicholas and her being eliminated with him still alive in the count.
If Nicholas does go out ahead of Male, then her vote will favour Saloumi and Male will be eliminated next as the last candidate to be eliminated. His votes (comprising his primaries, any Chow votes he receives and my surplus) are all recommended to then go to Fu over Saloumi. However, this is where the expected preference flow gets interesting (as it does if it ends up Nicholas v Fu in the final split).
Despite receiving second preference recommendations from Weaver, Vucic and Devendran in their candidate statements and having been higher on Male’s, Chow’s and my HTV cards than Saloumi, it appears voters are choosing not to follow this advice.
Based on small samples taken yesterday looking only at where votes flow between Nicholas, Saloumi and Fu (so admittedly, there is a large margin of error in these calculations), Fu was only receiving 12% of Devendran’s votes (compared to 65% for Nicholas – which includes the donkey vote and 23% to Saloumi). Weaver’s vote was split roughly equally between the three while Vucic’s vote appeared to be flowing about 60% to Saloumi with roughly 20% each to Nicholas and Fu. In past elections, you would expect to see the flow from dummy candidates at least around 50% and often over 60% to their second placed candidate.
However, what we are seeing is that voters are not paying much attention to HTV recommendations mentioned in candidate statements.
I suspect we are also many seeing voters differentiating between candidates based on their ethnicity as well. The flow from the other Chinese candidate in the ballot, Chow, to Fu is 70% over Saloumi and Nicholas which is very strong. However the split between each of the other candidates to Fu appears to be 10-20% with the exception of my surplus which is flowing to her at around 30%, to Nicholas at around 60% (who I preferenced higher than Fu) and to Saloumi at less than 10% (who I put last of the main candidates).
Glen Waverley Ward has a Chinese population of more than 30%. Do some Chinese voters prefer to vote for any other Chinese candidates before other candidates regardless of HTV advice? Probably. Do some Anglo voters in the ward prefer to vote for non-Chinese candidates prior to preferencing any Chinese candidates – well these flows sadly appear to suggest that too.
So what does it all mean?
If these preference flows are accurate and hold up and Nicholas stays ahead of Male, then she wins by around 500 votes.
However, the more likely scenario where she is eliminated before Male, sees a head to head split between Saloumi and Fu of 5,343 versus 5,325 at the end. This is less than nine votes in it and ridiculously close.
Given the small sample size my preference flows are based on, I caution this might as well be an 18 vote lead to Fu or a 200 vote win to either candidate. Certainly I would make no prediction on who will win between them, other than to say: this button press this afternoon will be very interesting.
Just to recap, here’s how the final primary vote sits for Glen Waverley:
| Candidate | Vote | % vote |
| DEVENDRAN, Iona | 917 | 6% |
| MALE, Gregory Robert | 1175 | 7% |
| WEAVER, Vanessa | 868 | 5% |
| NICHOLAS, Gayle | 1412 | 9% |
| VUCIC, Anton | 367 | 2% |
| SALOUMI, Lynnette | 2024 | 13% |
| LAKE, Geoff | 5706 | 36% |
| CHOW, Vincent | 924 | 6% |
| FU, Chloe | 2608 | 16% |
| TOTAL | 16001 |
11.15 am, Sun 30 Oct – Updated Oakleigh Ward progress count – 18,266 votes counted
Here are some updated figures – showing roughly the same splits as the earlier progress total.
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| NEWBY, David | 1201 | 6.6% |
| MANTON, Jessica | 859 | 4.7% |
| JAMES, Stuart | 1630 | 8.9% |
| ZOGRAPHOS, Theo | 3577 | 19.6% |
| SOMERVILLE, Jenny | 519 | 2.8% |
| HOSKING, Nga | 1049 | 5.7% |
| NALBANT, Tony | 161 | 0.9% |
| DONTAS, Alex | 351 | 1.9% |
| JOSHI, Archna | 492 | 2.7% |
| MURCHIE, Anna | 296 | 1.6% |
| PONTIKIS, Bill | 1391 | 7.6% |
| GUO, Weisheng | 822 | 4.5% |
| DUNN, Warwick | 462 | 2.5% |
| SCOTTO, Anna | 600 | 3.3% |
| ATHANASOPOULOS | 1612 | 8.8% |
| WIJESINGHE, Fairley | 283 | 1.5% |
| CRESIA, Frank | 483 | 2.6% |
| PETRIDIS, Bill | 341 | 1.9% |
| FERGEUS, Josh | 2137 | 11.7% |
| TOTAL | 18266 |
10.30 am, Sun 30 Oct – Updated Oakleigh Ward progress count – 15,192 votes counted
Here is the progress count for Oakleigh Ward.
This has been a good batch for Athanasopoulos with him improving slightly while Fergeus has dropped from 12.3% to 11.6% of the vote. Sampling during the week showed significant differences between batches with Fergeus out-polling all other candidates (including lead voter getter Zographos) in the votes received after the close of voting (around 15% of the total).
Athanasopoulos has also just edged out James for third place at this point, however, I am confident James will be elected because he has strong preference flow coming through to him. The candidates to watch are still Fergeus, Athanasopoulos and Pontikis.
It is unclear which votes have been counted at this stage so don’t place too much weight on these trends between progress counts. Based on sampling, Fergeus is expected to finish on around 12.5%, Athanasopoulos 8.1% and Pontikis 7.3% with some margin for error needing to be factored in.
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| NEWBY, David | 997 | 6.6% |
| MANTON, Jessica | 720 | 4.7% |
| JAMES, Stuart | 1332 | 8.8% |
| ZOGRAPHOS, Theo | 2925 | 19.3% |
| SOMERVILLE, Jenny | 444 | 2.9% |
| HOSKING, Nga | 906 | 6.0% |
| NALBANT, Tony | 125 | 0.8% |
| DONTAS, Alex | 299 | 2.0% |
| JOSHI, Archna | 409 | 2.7% |
| MURCHIE, Anna | 255 | 1.7% |
| PONTIKIS, Bill | 1127 | 7.4% |
| GUO, Weisheng | 679 | 4.5% |
| DUNN, Warwick | 397 | 2.6% |
| SCOTTO, Anna | 523 | 3.4% |
| ATHANASOPOULOS | 1350 | 8.9% |
| WIJESINGHE, Fairley | 245 | 1.6% |
| CRESIA, Frank | 407 | 2.7% |
| PETRIDIS, Bill | 297 | 2.0% |
| FERGEUS, Josh | 1755 | 11.6% |
| TOTAL | 15192 |
9.40 am, Sun 30 Oct – Updated Oakleigh Ward progress count
The VEC is making fast progress with the Oakleigh Ward count. Here’s an update:
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| NEWBY, David | 647 | 7.0% |
| MANTON, Jessica | 449 | 4.8% |
| JAMES, Stuart | 791 | 8.5% |
| ZOGRAPHOS, Theo | 1763 | 18.9% |
| SOMERVILLE, Jenny | 277 | 3.0% |
| HOSKING, Nga | 530 | 5.7% |
| NALBANT, Tony | 74 | 0.8% |
| DONTAS, Alex | 181 | 1.9% |
| JOSHI, Archna | 252 | 2.7% |
| MURCHIE, Anna | 146 | 1.6% |
| PONTIKIS, Bill | 704 | 7.6% |
| GUO, Weisheng | 400 | 4.3% |
| DUNN, Warwick | 252 | 2.7% |
| SCOTTO, Anna | 314 | 3.4% |
| ATHANASOPOULOS | 771 | 8.3% |
| WIJESINGHE, Fairley | 159 | 1.7% |
| CRESIA, Frank | 260 | 2.8% |
| PETRIDIS, Bill | 195 | 2.1% |
| FERGEUS, Josh | 1142 | 12.3% |
| TOTAL | 9307 |
9.20 am, Sun 30 Oct – First Oakleigh Ward progress count
Here is our first look at some results from Oakleigh Ward with around a fifth of votes counted.
This is largely in line with what the sampling was indicating during the extraction of ballots from declaration envelopes on last Saturday and Thursday. Looking like it is a three way battle between Fergeus, Athanasopoulos and Pontikis to join Zographos and James on the next Council.
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| NEWBY, David | 398 | 7.2% |
| MANTON, Jessica | 260 | 4.7% |
| JAMES, Stuart | 491 | 8.9% |
| ZOGRAPHOS, Theo | 1011 | 18.4% |
| SOMERVILLE, Jenny | 155 | 2.8% |
| HOSKING, Nga | 323 | 5.9% |
| NALBANT, Tony | 50 | 0.9% |
| DONTAS, Alex | 108 | 2.0% |
| JOSHI, Archna | 155 | 2.8% |
| MURCHIE, Anna | 88 | 1.6% |
| PONTIKIS, Bill | 411 | 7.5% |
| GUO, Weisheng | 239 | 4.3% |
| DUNN, Warwick | 142 | 2.6% |
| SCOTTO, Anna | 185 | 3.4% |
| ATHANASOPOULOS | 419 | 7.6% |
| WIJESINGHE, Fairley | 97 | 1.8% |
| CRESIA, Frank | 162 | 2.9% |
| PETRIDIS, Bill | 122 | 2.2% |
| FERGEUS, Josh | 683 | 12.4% |
| TOTAL | 5499 |
9.00 am, Sun 30 Oct – Glen Waverley Ward on a knife edge
Glen Waverley Ward is very tight for the final spot. It is between three candidates: Gayle Nicholas, Lynnette Saloumi and Chloe Fu.
If this election was based on typical preference flows seen at previous elections when candidate how-to-vote (HTV) advice was included in the postal ballot pack, then it would be a reasonably straight forward path to victory for Chloe Fu from here.
As the ‘Liberal’ backed candidate who spent more than $40,000 on her campaign with two electorate wide Australia Post delivered letters addressed to every single voter (not even family or household aggregated), she has three candidates all urging a second preference to her in their candidate statement. Two of these are Liberal dummy candidates – including the wife of a sitting Liberal councillor – and the third candidate was pressured and manipulated by that same councillor into preferencing to Fu against her wishes.
In past elections, this would keep Fu comfortably clear of Lynnette Saloumi – helped by my preferences (for my 3% surplus) and Greg Male’s and Vincent Chow’s preferences which go to her (after Nicholas) prior to Saloumi.
However with the removal of candidate HTV advice from the ballot papers it is no longer that straightforward. Indeed, the story of this count so far – in each of the three wards – is that preferences are spraying all over the place.
While every candidate in Glen Waverley has gone to the trouble of seeking authorisations from two or three other candidates in order to urge voters in their candidate statements to preference to these other candidates, many voters appear to be ignoring that advice completely (although this is in different proportions depending on the candidate).
Liberal aligned councillors focused most of their efforts on nominating multiple dummy candidates in each ward to feed votes through to their preferred one or two candidates. The result has been that more than half of all candidates standing in Monash are part of this Liberal attempt to take over the Council and trick voters into funneling their votes through a particular set of candidates.
This is a strategy that was effective in previous elections (it is how Theo Zographos managed to get elected with 6.95% of the vote in 2012 despite getting less than half of the votes of incumbent Stefanie Perri who he narrowly defeated after his seven dummy candidates just pushed him clear at the final throw). However, at this election this strategy looks like it has seriously backfired by actually depleting the primary votes of their preferred candidates who are now at risk of missing out completely.
Because of the ineffectiveness of dummy candidates at this election it is conceivable that any of Gayle Nicholas, Lynnette Saloumi or Chloe Fu could ultimately prevail. Based on some limited preference sampling done yesterday by my scrutineers, and while vote counting continues this morning for Oakleigh Ward, I’ll post some rough predictions about how it will unfold.
More on this shortly.
8.45 am, Sun 30 Oct – Counting has commenced in Oakleigh Ward
Counting is now underway now for Oakleigh Ward – the last remaining Monash ward to be counted.
7.30 am, Sun 30 Oct – Day 2 of counting
Welcome to the second and what should be the final day of counting votes in Monash. Counting is scheduled to begin again at 8.00 am this morning. Only Oakleigh Ward remains to be counted with data entry of ballot papers for Glen Waverley, Mount Waverley and Mulgrave Wards all being completed yesterday.
To recap on yesterday, here is how things look at this point:
Likely elected:
- Geoff Lake – Glen Waverley Ward (re-elected)
- Brian Little – Mount Waverley Ward (re-elected)
- Rebecca Paterson – Mount Waverley Ward (re-elected)
- Paul Klisaris – Mulgrave Ward (re-elected after resigning from Council to contest the federal election)
- Shane McCluskey – Mulgrave Ward (first time candidate)
- Robert Davies – Mulgrave Ward (re-elected)
- Theo Zographos – Oakleigh Ward (re-elected – based on sampling during the week)
- Stuart James – Oakleigh Ward (first time candidate – based on sampling during the week)
The question marks:
- 2nd Glen Waverley – between Chloe Fu, Lynnette Saloumi and Gayle Nicholas
- 3rd Mount Waverley – between Darren Paone, MT Tsoi and Raff Ciccone
- 3rd Oakleigh – between Josh Fergeus, Arthur Athanasopoulos and Bill Pontikis
We will not know for sure who will win these final spot battles until the Returning Officer presses the button to generate the results of the computer count at 4.00 pm this afternoon.
However, it is looking like MT Tsoi is the frontrunner in Mount Waverley and Josh Fergeus is likely to be tough to beat in Oakleigh because he is expected to have a lead of 5-6% over Arthur and Bill.
Glen Waverley is very tight and there are conceivable scenarios where any of the three candidates could win. I will post some further analysis on this later this morning based on preference flows observed yesterday during the data entry.
9.50 pm, Sat 29 Oct – Final primary result for Mount Waverley Ward
Counting has finished for this evening.
Here are the final primaries for Mount Waverley Ward. We know little more now than we knew from sampling during the week for this ward. Brian Little and Rebecca Paterson will be re-elected to Council. The third spot is not clear at this point between MT Tsoi, Raff Ciccone and Darren Paone and will be determined by preferences.
That’s three wards down and one to go. Data entry for Oakleigh Ward to commence at 8.00 am tomorrow.
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| BALOGH, Derek | 1001 | 4.0% |
| JETTER, Karl Martin | 242 | 1.0% |
| STILLITANO, Vanessa | 924 | 3.7% |
| HARVEY, Mitchell | 1170 | 4.6% |
| DAIS, Aphrodite | 411 | 1.6% |
| PATERSON, Rebecca | 3657 | 14.5% |
| TSOI, MT Pang | 2036 | 8.0% |
| OVENS, John | 603 | 2.4% |
| CICCONE, Raff | 1970 | 7.8% |
| LITTLE, Brian | 4489 | 17.7% |
| ALLISON, Nicole | 690 | 2.7% |
| PAONE, Darren | 1769 | 7.0% |
| DONG, Xing Cai | 747 | 3.0% |
| SAKELLARIS, George | 1230 | 4.9% |
| CROSHER, Douglas T | 115 | 0.5% |
| JAEGER, Jennifer A | 873 | 3.5% |
| MISHRA, Shiv Gulam | 428 | 1.7% |
| BAUER, Stefanie | 1123 | 4.4% |
| MAH, Edwin Yee-Weng | 481 | 1.9% |
| WENG, Lin | 657 | 2.6% |
| BRADSHAW, Jackson | 676 | 2.7% |
| TOTAL | 25292 |
8.30 pm, Sat 29 Oct – Final primary result for Mulgrave Ward
At 8.30 pm (a little later than the planned 2.00 pm) below are the final primary results for Mulgrave Ward. Looking straight forward to be Paul Klisaris (first), then Shane McCluskey followed by Robert Davies. Earlier speculation that Davies’s dummy candidates were not flowing through to him appears to be misplaced with a small sample done during the count indicating that he was doing at least as well as Yanko with preference flows. Therefore, very hard to see how Yanko could run him down even with any left over progressive vote after Paul Klisaris and Shane McCluskey’s quotas are filled.
A great result for former councillor Paul Klisaris who some said would struggle to come back after leaving Council a few months ago to contest the federal election. Also, a very strong showing by Shane McCluskey – a first time candidate. He will likely be the highest vote getter in Monash of non-incumbents (in which I’m including Paul Klisaris as well).
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| YANKO, Steve | 1968 | 8.6% |
| SINHA, Gitanjali | 368 | 1.6% |
| MATHER, Ray | 651 | 2.8% |
| PAWLUS, Ania | 902 | 3.9% |
| ZHENG-MACDONALD, Andrew | 219 | 1.0% |
| DAIS, Constantine | 208 | 0.9% |
| CHEAH, Chan | 781 | 3.4% |
| DAVIES, Robert | 3190 | 13.9% |
| RUBLEE, Greg | 939 | 4.1% |
| PERERA, Virosh | 453 | 2.0% |
| WANG, Charles | 769 | 3.4% |
| PALIT, Sajal Kumar | 269 | 1.2% |
| KLISARIS, Paul | 5458 | 23.8% |
| McCALL, Peter Hayden | 1358 | 5.9% |
| SHARKEY, John | 458 | 2.0% |
| GHOSH, Jyoti | 601 | 2.6% |
| GARDNER, Michael | 508 | 2.2% |
| OLIN, Des | 503 | 2.2% |
| McCLUSKEY, Shane | 3001 | 13.1% |
| ANAMIKA | 318 | 1.4% |
| Total | 22922 |
7:50 pm, Sat 29 Oct – while Arthur Athanasopoulos waits, Tony Athanasopoulos finds out his fate
Three time former mayor of Kingston Council, Arthur Athanasopoulos, has to wait until tomorrow for Oakleigh Ward votes to be counted where he is expected to be in a three-way race with Green Josh Fergeus and incumbent councillor, Bill Pontikis, for the third and final spot.
However, his brother, Tony, is about to find out his fate in Rosstown Ward in neighbouring Glen Eira when the button gets pushed there shortly at 8.00 pm. 8.00 PM UPDATE: further delays at Glen Eira with the button press now being pushed back to 8.45 PM. 9.00 PM UPDATE: Tony has been declared elected. Well done!
Interested in seeing how the button process works? Arthur’s fellow Oakleigh Ward candidate, Stuart James, is streaming it live on Facebook here.
7.30 pm, Sat 29 Oct – updated primaries for Mount Waverley Ward
Below is an updated count for Mount Waverley Ward with around 80% of the vote now counted – a clear three-way battle for the last spot.
Mulgrave is being finalised now with rulings on disputed ballots being made. Final totals will be available shortly but the result there looks clear-cut: Paul Klisaris, Shane McCluskey and Robert Davies.
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| BALOGH, Derek | 748 | 4% |
| JETTER, Karl Martin | 192 | 1% |
| STILLITANO, Vanessa | 690 | 3% |
| HARVEY, Mitchell | 869 | 4% |
| DAIS, Aphrodite | 321 | 2% |
| PATERSON, Rebecca | 3045 | 15% |
| TSOI, MT Pang | 1653 | 8% |
| OVENS, John | 499 | 2% |
| CICCONE, Raff | 1585 | 8% |
| LITTLE, Brian | 3641 | 18% |
| ALLISON, Nicole | 532 | 3% |
| PAONE, Darren | 1397 | 7% |
| DONG, Xing Cai | 585 | 3% |
| SAKELLARIS, George | 952 | 5% |
| CROSHER, Douglas T | 82 | 0% |
| JAEGER, Jennifer A | 676 | 3% |
| MISHRA, Shiv Gulam | 335 | 2% |
| BAUER, Stefanie | 837 | 4% |
| MAH, Edwin Yee-Weng | 368 | 2% |
| WENG, Lin | 511 | 3% |
| BRADSHAW, Jackson | 495 | 2% |
| TOTAL | 20013 |
6.30 pm, Sat 29 Oct – Oakleigh count postponed
There will be no counting in Oakleigh tonight. It is postponed until tomorrow which means there’ll be no button push at 11.00 am as previously arranged by the VEC.
Here is the email just sent to candidates by the Returning Officer:
Unfortunately, the computer count has not progressed as quickly as expected. Therefore, it has been decided that the computer count for Oakleigh will now be deferred until tomorrow morning, beginning at 8 am.
As a result, we will have to push back the time for the calculation of results until 4 pm tomorrow afternoon (30 October).
The results’ calculation will still take place at the Election Office in Oakleigh. Again, though, please be aware that the Greek Festival is still taking place at Warrawee Park and parking will still be a problem. If you are planning to turn up for the calculation of results, allow yourself extra time for parking.
4.30 pm, Sat 29 Oct – progress of count
So at 4.30 pm on Saturday we have data entry completed for only one ward, Glen Waverley, and counting continuing in two wards, Mount Waverley and Mulgrave.
According to the Returning Officer’s advice circulated to candidates during the week, Glen Waverley was meant to have been finished at 9.30 am (it concluded around midday) and Mulgrave was meant to finish at 2.10 pm. Latest estimates for when Mount Waverley will be finished is 9.30 pm.
Counting is yet to begin in Oakleigh Ward (it was due to commence at 2.30 pm) and the current advice is that it will begin at 6.30 pm. However, don’t be surprised if the VEC decide to hold this count over until tomorrow which would presumably mean they would also move the button push until later on Sunday than the currently planned 11.00 am time.
Meanwhile, while Paul Klisaris needs to wait longer for his own results in Mulgrave, his daughter Jami Klisaris has just been declared re-elected in neighbouring Stonnington Council after topping the primary vote in East Ward despite changing wards at this election.
3.15 pm, Sat 29 Oct – progressive primary votes for Mount Waverley Ward
Here is a progressive count for Mount Waverley Ward – one of the tightest final place battles to watch. There are three to be elected which makes quota 25%. The two incumbents Brian Little and Rebecca Paterson well out in front and will be easily elected. Will be a close and interesting tussle between Raff Ciccone (third), MT Tsoi (fourth) and Darren Paone (fifth) for the final position. Will come down to preference flows and the order that candidates are eliminated. Each of them has a chance to scrape in.
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| BALOGH, Derek | 183 | 3% |
| JETTER, Karl Martin | 58 | 1% |
| STILLITANO, Vanessa | 203 | 4% |
| HARVEY, Michell | 237 | 4% |
| DAIS, Aphrodite | 90 | 2% |
| PATERSON, Rebecca | 858 | 16% |
| TSOI, MT Pang | 423 | 8% |
| OVENS, John | 119 | 2% |
| CICCONE, Raff | 384 | 7% |
| LITTLE, Brian | 909 | 17% |
| ALLISON, Nicole | 153 | 3% |
| PAONE, Darren | 356 | 7% |
| DONG, Xing Cai | 133 | 3% |
| SAKELLARIS, George | 227 | 4% |
| CROSHER, Douglas T | 29 | 1% |
| JAEGER, Jennifer A | 203 | 4% |
| MISHRA, Shiv Gulam | 90 | 2% |
| BAUER, Stefanie | 244 | 5% |
| MAH, Edwin Yee-Weng | 100 | 2% |
| WENG, Lin | 143 | 3% |
| BRADSHAW, Jackson | 131 | 2% |
| TOTAL | 5273 |
2.30 pm, Sat 29 Oct – progressive primary votes for Mulgrave Ward
Here is the progressive primary vote totals for Mulgrave as the count there continues. Paul Klisaris will be comfortably elected on or about quota. Robert Davies and Shane McCluskey are then battling it out for second place with 14% of the vote. Others are a fair bit back. Three to be elected, quota is 25%.
| Candidate | Votes | % |
| YANKO, Steve | 1026 | 8% |
| SINHA, Gitanjali | 190 | 2% |
| MATHER, Ray | 372 | 3% |
| PAWLUS, Ania | 480 | 4% |
| ZHENG-MACDONALD, Andrew | 104 | 1% |
| DAIS, Constantine | 106 | 1% |
| CHEAH, Chan | 416 | 3% |
| DAVIES, Robert | 1793 | 14% |
| RUBLEE, Greg | 509 | 4% |
| PERERA, Virosh | 248 | 2% |
| WANG, Charles | 387 | 3% |
| PALIT, Sajal Kumar | 133 | 1% |
| KLISARIS, Paul | 3063 | 24% |
| McCALL, Peter Hayden | 799 | 6% |
| SHARKEY, John | 243 | 2% |
| GHOSH, Jyoti | 324 | 3% |
| GARDNER, Michael | 270 | 2% |
| OLIN, Des | 271 | 2% |
| McCLUSKEY, Shane | 1703 | 14% |
| ANAMIKA | 168 | 1% |
| TOTAL | 12605 |
12.30 pm, Sat 29 Oct – final primary votes for Glen Waverley Ward
We have a completed primary vote count for Glen Waverley Ward. This is an election for two positions. Quota is 33%. I am elected with a small surplus.
It is going to be tight for the second position and we won’t know the outcome until tomorrow’s button press.
| Candidate | Vote | % |
| DEVENDRAN, Iona | 917 | 6% |
| MALE, Gregory Robert | 1175 | 7% |
| WEAVER, Vanessa | 868 | 5% |
| NICHOLAS, Gayle | 1412 | 9% |
| VUCIC, Anton | 367 | 2% |
| SALOUMI, Lynnette | 2024 | 13% |
| LAKE, Geoff | 5706 | 36% |
| CHOW, Vincent | 924 | 6% |
| FU, Chloe | 2608 | 16% |
| TOTAL | 16001 |
9.00 am, Sat 29 Oct – counting underway
After some computer issues, counting is now finally underway for the Monash Council elections. Glen Waverley and Mulgrave Wards up first followed by Mount Waverley and Oakleigh later in the day. Counting involves dozens of data entry operators inputting every every ballot paper into the VEC’s vote counting IT system. This will take all day (and a fair fit of this evening) to complete. At the end of the process, we’ll know exact first preference votes for each candidate in every ward. It will then be a nervous wait for candidates until 11.00 am on Sunday when the ‘button’ will be pressed by the Returning Officer to spit out the lucky candidates who are elected.
8.00 am, Sat 29 Oct – not starting on time
Counting was meant to commence at 8.00 am but has been delayed because of the usual technical reasons.
7.00 am, Sat 29 Oct – what we know so far
Before a single vote is counted we already have an idea of what is going on in Monash. This is because scrutineers attending the extraction of ballot papers from the envelopes during the week have taken various samples of the votes. This is what I feel quite comfortable predicting at this point based on what are typically sample sizes of 10-20% of the vote in each ward:
Likely elected:
- Geoff Lake – Glen Waverley Ward (re-elected)
- Brian Little – Mount Waverley Ward (re-elected)
- Rebecca Paterson – Mount Waverley Ward (re-elected)
- Paul Klisaris – Mulgrave Ward (re-elected after resigning from Council to contest the federal election)
- Shane McCluskey – Mulgrave Ward (first time candidate)
- Theo Zographos – Oakleigh Ward (re-elected)
- Stuart James – Oakleigh Ward (first time candidate)
The question marks:
- 2nd Glen Waverley – between Chloe Fu, Lynnette Saloumi and Gayle Nicholas
- 3rd Mount Waverley – between Darren Paone, MT Tsoi and Raff Ciccone
- 3rd Mulgrave – between Robert Davies (likely) and Steve Yanko
- 3rd Oakleigh – between Josh Fergeus, Arthur Athanasopoulos and Bill Pontikis
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