Breaking Brimbank council’s seven-year spell from democracy wasn’t inspiration enough to get almost 35,000 residents to vote in last year’s local government election.
The Victoria Electoral Commission’s (VEC) report on the Brimbank council poll reveals one in four residents didn’t vote last October, with a turnout of only 74.41 per cent of voters overall.
This was below the voter turnout of 77.89 per cent at its previous council election in November 2008. October was the first election held since the council was sacked by the state government in 2009 and administrators appointed following a damning report from the Ombudsman.
It was also the first time a council election had been conducted by postal vote.
Brimbank’s 134,600 enrolled voters had from the beginning of October until October 21 last year to complete their ballot papers and return them using reply-paid envelopes.
Yet only 100,200 ballot papers were counted at the close of voting, despite a year-long Brimbank Votes awareness campaign to encourage people to enrol to vote and to inform potential candidates about the role.
In his report, the VEC electoral commissioner Warwick Gately said it had also run an advertising campaign in major and local newspapers, on Facebook, and for multilingual radio and newspapers.
“These advertisements targeted geographic areas, as well as demographic segments of the population that typically have low participation rates,” he said.
People who did not vote in the election and were eligible to do so will be sent a failure-to-vote notice.
If they do not respond to that notice, or can’t provide a satisfactory response, they may be fined $78.
Mr Gately’s report also mentioned the VEC had received 22 written complaints in relation to the Brimbank election – two related to the administration of the election, 12 related to the conduct of a participant in the election, and eight related to possible breaches of the Local Government Act or local laws – but no details of the complaints were divulged.
