Counting in the 2024 Byron Shire Council election after polling booths closed Saturday suggested a Greens-majority was again in sight for the first time since 2016.
Eight years ago the party won support for all four of its candidates to gain seats on the council, including former Greens mayor Simon Richardson, with surplus votes helping to bring in two independents , former Councillors Cate Coorey and Basil Cameron, after preferential distribution.
But the honeymoon didn’t last long, with two of the Greens councillors, Michael Lyon and Jeanette Martin, soon quitting the party and running as independents on the same group ticket.
Mr Lyon and Ms Martin ran in the 2021 and 2024 elections as part of the Byron Independents group, Mr Lyon also running for mayor both times and winning in 2021.
But three years on, his popularity appeared to have slumped perhaps to the bottom of the mayoral race, while his prospects of regaining an ordinary seat were still close.
The Greens, meanwhile, experienced fewer votes in 2021 than in the surprise 2016 results but in 2024, early vote counting suggested they had a reasonable chance of reclaiming past glory and more.
Incumbent mayor slumps in popular vote
At various times on Saturday night as counts continued to be updated, Mr Lyon’s votes were slightly more or less than those for newcomer to the race, Independent David Warth.
Saturday’s count ended with the incumbent mayor trailing behind at 17.29% of the popular vote compared to Mr Warth at 17.63%.
Not knowing how voters for either candidate preferenced, if at all, meant the competition was still mathematically open to all four mayoral aspirants.
Were voters for Mr Warth and Mr Lyon to have preferenced both in the top two numbers, one could potentially make it to second position in the race or even the lead, held by Ms Ndiaye for The Greens at 34.71%.
More than likely, one by one Mr Lyon and Mr Warth would be excluded from the count and any remaining preferences distributed between Ms Ndiaye and Labor’s Asren Pugh.
Labor vs The Greens for mayor
Mr Pugh was roughly four percentage points behind Ms Ndiaye, at 30.37%.
There were 18,434 mayoral votes reflected in the tally, compared to 27,484 registered voters.
That’s an increase of around 2,000 registered Byron Shire voters compared to the 25,414 in 2021, with 18,732 counted in that year’s mayoral election.
Counting could therefore be as far as either two-thirds of the way through or almost finished depending on voter participation.
The total number of postal votes yet to be included was unknown and the deadline for postal voters not until the 27th of September.
Attention then turning to how Mr Lyon’s and Mr Warth’s voters together might preference between Mr Pugh and Ms Ndiaye, if at all, suggested the competition was predictably tight between Labor and The Greens for the top council job but with an advantage to Ms Ndiaye.
Both party candidates were all but guaranteed a return to a seat on the council.
The Greens lead early council vote count
Fewer than 10,000 votes for ordinary Byron Shire Councillor seats were counted by end of Saturday and of these, more than 2,000 were recorded as informal/other, compared to around 1,000 in 2021 final tallies and 741 in 2016.
Winning the top mayoral position would be an obvious advantage to either party but especially The Greens, with early counts showing the party appearing ready to win nearly enough votes for four ordinary council seats.
The Greens was on track for a quota ratio of 3.62 councillor seats by the close of counting Saturday night.
In the event the party achieves a quota of four or more, as well as the mayoral seat, The Greens would have a council majority of five.
But if preferences from Mr Lyon and Mr Warth’s voters favoured Mr Pugh over Ms Ndiaye, Labor could hold the mayoral position.
It was also possible The Greens would fail to hit the quota of four, and fail to win mayor, a double whammy that would leave three total seats to the party, assuming current voting trends continued.
All possibilities considered, early votes suggested the council was likely to include First Nations Greens candidate Delta Kay, number three on the party’s ticket, and could well include a second First Nations Greens candidate, Michelle Lowe.
Labor vote counts open path towards second Swivel term
Labor, meanwhile, had earned a quota of 2.51 ordinary council seats by Saturday’s vote count end, suggesting the party could reach 3 with favourable preferences.
A third ordinary council seat was one of two outcomes that could earn incumbent Cr Mark Swivel a second term given he was number three on Labor’s ticket.
But if Mr Pugh won the title of Mayor, Mr Swivel would likely already be on track to win a seat and Labor would be in the race for a fourth seat overall, one seat shy of a majority.
Either way, Labor’s newcomer and second listed group candidate, Janet Swain, was likely to win a seat on the council, unless an extraordinary number of Labor voters numbered differently to how-to-vote suggestions from Labor.
Lyon and Warth close to progressive quota for council seats
None of the other groups or candidates besides Labor and The Greens had reached the progressive quota for ordinary council seats, which by end of counting was 834 votes compared to 1,971 in 2021 and expected to increase as counting continued.
Michael Lyon’s Byron Independents group, listed as Group C on ballots, was the nearest, with 819 votes and a progressive quota ratio of 0.98.
David Warth’s Byron Shire Compass group, listed as Group B on ballots, was also close, with 782 votes and a progressive quota ratio of 0.94.
The council vote is where Mr Lyon and Mr Warth appeared to have the strongest chances of winning seats on the council.
By end of Saturday night, the council looked like it would feature either a Greens or Labor mayor, with potential for a Greens majority but the two parties likely to take at least seven seats between them.
How votes would be distributed between them would be crucial in determining the difference between Labor holding as few as two or as many four seats and The Greens as few as three and as many as five.
The council was likely to feature at least five women.
Mayoral voting trends across the shire
Looking at individual voting booths revealed a few accompanying voter trends when it came to the mayoral vote.
The highest number of votes accounted for were more than 6,000 in the pre-poll, with results in line with overall first preference figures.
But there were notable differences in some booth tallies.
The most in-person votes counted were more than 2,000 at the St Johns Multi-Purpose Centre in Mullumbimby, where 855 first preferences went to Ms Ndiaye.
The Greens candidate had won nearly double the votes for Labor’s Mr Pugh, who had about 100 more than Mr Warth in third place.
First preferences at the booth with the second-biggest tally, the Ocean Shores Community Centre, showed a tight race between Ms Ndiaye, Mr Pugh and Mr Lyon, with each candidate having won more than 500 votes compared to Mr Warth’s 188.
Around 1,500 votes were counted at each of Byron Bay and Bangalow Public Schools with telling results.
Labor’s Mr Pugh had a clear lead in Bangalow of 614 votes compared to Ms Ndiaye’s 468, while Ms Ndiaye was ahead with a smaller margin in Byron Bay at 537 compared to Mr Pugh’s 412.
Ms Ndiaye also had strong leads at the Brunswick Heads Memorial Hall booth and at Suffolk Park Hall.
Mr Lyon was trailing last at eight of eleven booths and in the pre-poll counts and was failing to outpoll Ms Ndiaye or Mr Pugh anywhere.
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