Perth Voice Interactive

WA’s most-populous council, Stirling, is not so popular when it comes to voting.

It had the lowest average voter turnout of all four councils in Voiceland, with just 26,300 of 134,800 electors bothering to cast a ballot in last weekend’s council elections.

In its Inglewood ward, just 20.5 per cent of its 19,000 electors could muster the energy to fill out some boxes and post back their voting slips.

The turnout is well below the state average of 27.5 per cent, according to the WA electoral commission, which now handles almost all state’s local government elections.

“I think there’s apathy,” says mayor Giovanni Italiano, who scraped back into his Osborne ward seat. “People think they don’t really have to do it.”

Deputy electoral commissioner Chris Avent says he’s not surprised Stirling attracts a lower turnout.

“As a general trend, the largest urban local governments, in terms of residential elector numbers, tend to have the lowest elector participation rates,” he says.

“What local issues are running will impact on turnout as will the profile of the candidates, hence variations from one ward to the next.

“There is no particular target or universal benchmark for such voluntary elections, however the commission would like to see participation rates well over the current figures in most metropolitan local government districts.”

He says Wanneroo and Joondalop — both of them very large councils — had the lowest voter turnout percentages.

The highest was Perth, with a 37 per cent turnout rate for the highly publicised lord mayoral ballot.

by EMMIE DOWLING