Neal and McWaide likely to be councillors
Labor's Ms Belinda Neal, Liberal Mr Trent McWaide and one independent candidate are likely to be representing the Peninsula as Gosford West Ward councillors following Saturday's council elections.
This assumes the voting trend in the initial count continues for the remainder of the count.
Only 16 per cent of the vote had been counted in the last figures issued at 10:35pm on Saturday night.
The count did not include votes from a number of Peninsula polling booths including Brisbane Water Secondary College Woy Woy campus, Peninsula Community Centre, Umina Beach Public School, the Umina Beach CWA hall or the Umina Uniting Church.
Across the ward, which includes Gosford and East Gosford and extends as far as Bucketty in the north and Wiseman's Ferry in the west, a total of 8353 votes had been counted from the 51,626 people entitled to vote in the ward.
The NSW Electoral Commission expects that final numbers will not be known for another fortnight.
Both Labor and Liberal Parties have more than the "quota ratio" of the vote needed for a councillor to be elected on first preferences.
All of the other four groups have less than 0.5 as their quota ratio.
At close of counting on Saturday night, the Liberal Party had received 1985 votes, 30.14 per cent of the vote counted, for a quota ratio of 1.21.
Labor had received 1911 votes 29.02 per cent of the vote, for a quota ratio of 1.16.
The next highest number of votes was 756 for Jane Smith's New Independents, 11.48 per cent of the vote, a quota ratio of 0.46.
Team Central Coast received 696 votes, 10.57 per cent of the votes, a quota ratio of 0.42.
Lisa Bellamy's Coasties Who Care gained 669 votes, 10.16 per cent of the vote, a quota ratio of 0.41, while the lowest ranking group was Kevin Brooks' Ratepayers' Choice with 504 votes, 7.65 per cent of the votes, a quota ratio of 0.31.
The number of votes classified as "informal-other" was 1768, 21.17 per cent of the count and more than any of the four independent groups.
Across the council, the quota ratios suggest five Labor candidates will be elected, four Liberal candidates and two Team Central Coast candidates, with the other four positions to be decided by the distribution of preferences.
SOURCE:
Website, 14 Sep 2024
NSW Electoral Commission