VOTERS across Greater Shepparton have turned out strongly for the 2020 local council elections with the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) anticipating one of its healthiest council turnouts.
46,242 ballot packs were mailed out to those eligible to vote in the Greater Shepparton Council election between 6-8 October.
According to Mick Bastian, VEC election manager for Greater Shepparton, by the close of voting last Friday, 30,282 ballots had been processed and would be counted this week.
It is anticipated another 7,500 packs, that were completed by 6pm last Friday, will be received in the mail this week. This second batch will be extracted and counted next week.
“Today and tomorrow is spent slicing off the identification flaps from the ballot paper envelopes, then slicing the remaining envelope to enable the extraction of the ballot paper, which is then sorted into formal and obviously informal categories,” Mr Bastian said on Monday.
“Commencing on Wednesday (today), the formal papers will be counted by computer. The same procedure will be applied to the remaining packs, commencing next Monday.”
State-wide, the VEC is predicting an average response rate of around 76 percent mark or higher, up on the 2016 election’s 73 percent response rate.
Final results are expected on Friday, November 13.
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