Day 1: Council Elections 2016

A brief introduction

Here we finally are at Day 1 of the 2016 local government elections for Victoria. I will be posting here over the course of the next few weeks to keep you all updated on what is happening in the world of local politics. Obviously I will be focussing on Boroondara, but I will try to get to other areas and a broad overview as well.

I come at this topic from my perspective as someone with a keen interest in politics and local history. I have spent many years researching my local area, in particular past councillors in the 140+ years of local government in Boroondara (see BoroondaraWiki for my current project). This may explain some of the character of future posts.

I should at declare at the outset that I am a current councillor at Boroondara. As such, I do know many councillors and candidates personally both here and across Victoria. However, I will remain as objective as possible in my writing (it will mainly be number crunching with limited commentary anyway). I should also add that everything on here is in my capacity as an individual, and does not represent the views of the City of Boroondara or any other person/entity.

Why do this at all? Compared to state and federal levels, there is limited coverage of local elections. Consequently, voters and future historians are not necessarily as informed as they otherwise would be with more information about what is happening. With the knowledge and experience of four years as an elected representative, I would like to put this to good use in helping to bridge this gap.

Nominations open

So, to business. Today marked the opening of nominations for 78 council elections being conducted across Victoria, and many have already put their hand up. This year for the first time, the VEC is posting the names and contact details of nominees as they come in on their website. Frankly, this is a welcome innovation for psephologists and voters alike, making it far easier to see who has nominated before ballots are posted.

A table with a full list of candidates who nominated today may be found below.

Boroondara nominees at conclusion of 15 September 2016

There were some other names on the list today, but they were taken down shortly afterwards for some reason.

Nominations for all wards are open until 12 noon on Tuesday 20 September. The ballot order will be drawn soon afterwards.

I will be going into more detail about other aspects of the election in future posts. In the interim, if you would like more election information, visit the VEC website: http://vec.vic.gov.au.

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