Local government elections are counted using proportional representation, which is the same electoral system used in upper house elections in SA and in our federal parliament.
Proportional representation is used to count votes when there are multi-member electorates, members are elected when they receive a set proportion (or amount) of votes. Each vote can still be transferred following the voter’s preferences and vacant positions are filled as close as possible to the votes received.
If you want to get into exactly how the sausage is made ECSA has more info in written and video form here.
Because this system is a more complex count than preferential voting used for lower house counts in state and federal parliaments, we won’t have immediate results. So, no Antony Green ABC election night coverage this time around, at the earliest we’ll have some results in the week following.
