Northern Territory Consolidated Regulations Northern Territory Consolidated Regulations54. Election of ordinary members of council
(1) If ordinary members of the council are to be elected for an area or a ward, the returning officer will proceed in accordance with this regulation.
(2) First, if a candidate for election as an ordinary member has been elected in the contemporaneous election for principal member as the principal member:
(a) the candidate is excluded from the count; and
(b) if the number of continuing candidates then equals the number of vacancies to be filled, the returning officer will declare the continuing candidates to have been elected, but if not, the count will proceed in accordance with subregulation (3).
(3) The count will proceed as follows:
(a) the formal ballot papers are first counted according to the first available preference expressed by the voter;
Note
It should be noted that, if a candidate has already been elected, a preference expressed by a voter in favour of that candidate ceases to be an available preference. So if, for example, 2 candidates have been elected and the voter's first and second preference were for those candidates, the voter's first available preference, on a count conducted to decide the third candidate to be elected, will be the highest preference expressed by the voter for a candidate who is as yet unelected i.e. the voter's third preference.
(b) if, after the counting of votes under paragraph (a), it appears that 1 candidate has achieved more than 50% of the formal votes, the returning officer will declare that candidate to have been elected;
(c) if, after the counting of votes under paragraph (a), it appears that no candidate has achieved more than 50% of the formal votes, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is excluded from the count and the votes formerly counted to that candidate are counted to the remaining candidates according to the next available preference expressed by the voter;
(d) if, following the distribution of preferences under paragraph (c), a candidate has achieved more than 50% of the formal votes, the returning officer will declare that candidate to have been elected but, if not, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is excluded from the count and the votes formerly counted to that candidate are counted to the remaining candidates according to the next available preference expressed by the voter;
(e) the process of exclusion and preference distribution continues until a candidate achieves more than 50% of the formal votes;
(f) when a candidate achieves more than 50% of the formal votes, the returning officer will declare the candidate to have been elected;
(g) if there is a further vacancy, or further vacancies, to be filled, the formal ballot papers are recounted and the process described above is repeated for each remaining vacancy and, on the first and each successive recount, the following candidates are excluded from the count:
(i) any candidate excluded under subregulation (2);
(ii) the candidate or candidates already elected.
(4) If there are 2 or more candidates with the lowest number of votes and 1 of them is to be excluded from the count, then:
(a) if on an earlier count (for the same vacancy), 1 of the candidates was excluded before the other or others, that candidate will be excluded; but
(b) if not, the returning officer must decide, by lot, which candidate is to be excluded.