The NSW Electoral commission is calling for the Kempsey Shire election to be declared void after technical issues

The NSW Electoral Commission recently stated that 34 approved electors in Kempsey were unable to vote on the online iVote platform due to technical issues.

The council is now seeking legal advice to prepare for a Supreme Court hearing after the Commission sought to have the recent councillor election declared void.

The Electoral Commissioner will be applying to the Supreme Court as soon as possible, for a declaration about the validity of the election results in the three elections that were affected. These were: Kempsey, Singleton and Shellharbour.

The Kempsey Mayoral election was not materially impacted and Leo Hauville is confirmed as the new Mayor.

Council and the elected councillors have been named as defendants in the matter. The Commissioner has been granted an expedited hearing to have the matter heard as soon as possible.

Kempsey Shire Council General Manager, Craig Milburn, said that council would work with all parties in the interests of ensuring a fair and democratic election result.

"Council is fundamentally committed to free, fair and true, democratic elections," Mr Milburn said.

"As the commissioner has determined that our councillor elections may have been impacted by issues in their iVote system, the Supreme Court will need to rule on that result's validity. We have engaged Local Government Legal to provide advice to council to prepare for the hearing.

"While we wait for this matter to be heard in Court, we do have a declared council and it is business as usual with the first council meeting scheduled for 25 Jan 2022."

More information regarding the matter.

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