Perth Voice Interactive

A VETERAN scrutineer says the WA electoral commission did not run the vote well in the City of Canning, echoing concerns laid against the organisation by former Bayswater councillor Michael Sabatino (see page 1).

The Voice spoke with Dean Blanchard, a scrutineer for Joe Delle Donne, the mayor who was booted off council by more than 1000 votes.

Mr Blanchard has his own concerns over how the WA electoral commission handled votes, saying election night was “unorganised”.

“I’ll say what I saw and it was not run well at all,” says Mr Blanchard, who has counted state election votes.

“It was very hard for a scrutineer to do their job.”

He says the mayoral ballot was counted at two tables at one stage, and “too many” people—up to 11—were sorting out already-opened envelopes.

He says some people were even counting votes on cardboard boxes, away from the tables.

“My overall feeling is that this is going on all over the state,” he says.

“The most worrying thing for me was that envelopes had already been opened and sorted and rubber-banded into lots of 100. That surprised me.

“There was a little bit of secrecy and it was a bit of a rush. But I wouldn’t say there was anything dodgy happening with the count. It’s just the system is all over the place.”