Winning Geraldton councillors yet to be declared

While Mayor Shane Van Styn was a clear winner in last night’s City of Greater Geraldton elections, a computer failure in Perth left fewer than 20 per cent of councillor votes counted, and no result.

While all mayoral votes had been manually counted, polling staff in Geraldton were manually entering councillor votes on to a central database in Perth using a new system which overloaded the central computer.

Early tallies showed Cr Tarleah Thomas a clear leader, followed by Cr Simon Keemink and former councillor Peter Fiorenza.

Local tradesman Kim “Butch” Parker was in fourth place, leaving Cr Bob Hall and deputy mayor Neil McIlwaine vying for fifth place if early trends continued.

Returning officer Michelle Harvey said 9194 votes were cast for councillors and 9221 voted for mayor.

The mayor and councillors are to be sworn in tomorrow evening at Council Chambers.