DERWENT Valley Council deputy mayor Jessica Cosgrove holds a narrow lead at the end of counting of primary votes in the election to decide who will serve as deputy mayor for the next four years. With 6337 votes counted, the first preference spread looks like this:
- Jessica Cosgrove 1725 votes, 27.22%
- Luke Browning 1696, 26.76%
- Sara Lowe 864, 13.63%
- Wayne Shoobridge 783, 12.36%
- Phillip Bigg 741, 11.69%
- Natasha Woods 528, 8.33%
The next step will be for the TEC to distribute the preferences of the lower-polling candidates until one candidate reaches a quota, which is currently 3169 votes for this position.
Whoever is elected deputy mayor will also have to be elected as a councillor to be able to take up the higher role. The Tasmanian Electoral Commission has now counted half of the primary votes for councillors and its predicted new-look council remains mostly the same as yesterday, with Michelle Dracoulis, Luke Browning, Jessica Cosgrove, Sara Lowe, Phillip Bingley, Peter Binny, Matt Hill and Justin Derksen tipped for election in that order.
With about 50% of the councillor votes counted, the primary votes look like this:
- DRACOULIS, Michelle 770 votes, 22.80%, 2.05 quotas
- BROWNING, Luke 395, 11.70%, 1.05
- BINNY, Peter 262, 7.76%, 0.70
- COSGROVE, Jessica 252, 7.46%, 0.67
- DERKSEN, Justin 239, 7.08%, 0.64
- BINGLEY, Phillip 222, 6.57%, 0.59
- HILL, Matt 191, 5.66%, 0.51
- GRAHAM, James 171, 5.06%, 0.45
- BIGG, Phillip 155, 4.59%, 0.41
- LOWE, Sara 141, 4.18%, 0.38
- SHOOBRIDGE, Wayne 127, 3.76%, 0.34
- CHAPLIN, Heather 111, 3.29%, 0.30
- WIGGINS, Brody 85, 2.52%, 0.23
- WOODS, Natasha 66, 1.95%, 0.18
- VIRTUE, Liz 59, 1.75%, 0.16
- CARNES, Deb 58, 1.72%, 0.15
- MARYNIAK, Brett 48, 1.42%, 0.13
- NELSON, Eve 25, 0.74%, 0.07
Click here for updates in the Derwent Valley Council election count.