FOR the first time, the old school site in Lemon Tree Passage was abandoned as a polling place and the auditorium at Club Lemon Tree took its place.

This was seen as both more voter friendly and more in keeping with the Covid restrictions.

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Tanilba Bay Public School was the other venue on the Tilligerry Peninsula, and at both locations social distancing and face masks were mandatory.

To lower the risk of Covid transmission, each voter was given a pen which they could keep.

Prospective councillors and their helpers were not allowed to hand out their ‘how to vote’ flyers for fear of spreading Covid.

Of all the polling places used over the years, the old fire station at LTP (now an Arts Centre) was the most popular place to vote.

Its location on the main road with no steps to negotiate and ample parking appealed to most residents.

Infact, disabled voters were actually permitted to be driven into the building and were handed ballot papers to complete in their cars!

The emerging trend of pre-poll and online voting continued which will extend the time before the poll is declared.

At the time of writing, the primary vote results for Central Ward were as follows: Independent (Tucker) 1818, Independent (Doohan) 2317, ALP (Wells) 2400, Ungrouped (Doran) 85

Surprisingly, the informal vote came in at 1553, possibly because of confusion about the voting instructions.

The Mayoral vote is too close to call at this stage but the three top candidates listed above appear home and hosed in the Councillor race if preference distribution follows the primary voting pattern.

By Geoff WALKER