2022 Adelaide City Council election

12 November 2022
  First party Second party Third party
 
IND
Sandy Verschoor 2023.jpg
Candidate Rex Patrick Jane Lomax-Smith Sandy Verschoor
Party Rex Patrick Team Independent Labor Team Adelaide
Popular vote 2,734 2,666 2,489
Percentage 31.88% 31.08% 29.02%
Swing Increase 31.88 Increase 31.08 Decrease 20.56
Notional 3CP 35.11% 33.66% 31.23%
2CP 49.60% 50.40%
2CP swing Increase 49.60 Increase 50.40

Lord Mayor before election

Sandy Verschoor
Team Adelaide

Subsequent Lord Mayor

Jane Lomax-Smith
Independent Labor

The 2022 Adelaide City Council election was held on 12 November 2022 to elect a lord mayor and 11 councillors to the City of Adelaide. The election was held as part of the statewide local government elections in South Australia.[1]

Incumbent lord mayor Sandy Verschoor was defeated by former lord mayor Jane Lomax-Smith. The election proved to be controversial, with unsuccessful candidate and former senator Rex Patrick appealing the result after losing by 52 votes.[2]

Background

At the November 2018 election, six candidates from Team Adelaide were successful, giving the group control of the council.[3] Successful lord mayoral candidate Sandy Verschoor was also linked to the group in media reports.[4][5][6]

In January 2020, Team Adelaide founder and councillor Houssam Abiad resigned. The Central Ward supplementary election in April−May 2020 was won by independent Greg Mackie, leaving Team Adelaide without a majority.[7][8] Mackie later resigned in June 2022, claiming there was "no civility" on the council.[9]

Going into the election, the group was led by Alexander Hyde and composed of Mary Couros, Franz Knoll, Simon Hou and Arman Abrahimzadeh. Jessy Khera was also affiliated with the group, however she did not seek re-election in order to look after a terminally ill relative.[10]

Results

Lord Mayor

2022 South Australian local elections: Lord Mayor
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Rex Patrick Team Rex Patrick 2,734 31.88 +31.88
Independent Labor Jane Lomax-Smith 2,666 31.08 +31.08
Team Adelaide Sandy Verschoor 2,489 29.02 −20.56
Independent Vivek Gupta 391 4.56 +4.56
Independent Steven Kelly 297 3.46 −3.74
Total formal votes 8,577 99.39
Informal votes 53 0.61
Turnout 8,630
Notional three-candidate-preferred count
Rex Patrick Team Rex Patrick 2,880 35.11
Independent Labor Jane Lomax-Smith 2,761 33.66
Team Adelaide Sandy Verschoor 2,561 31.23
Two-candidate-preferred result
Independent Labor Jane Lomax-Smith 3,251 50.40 +50.40
Rex Patrick Team Rex Patrick 3,199 49.60 +49.60
Independent Labor gain from Team Adelaide Swing

Area Councillors

2022 South Australian local elections: Area Councillors
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Team Adelaide Arman Abrahimzadeh (elected) 1,851 22.0
Independent Anne Moran 1,790 21.3
Independent Janet Giles (elected) 1,686 20.1
Independent Liberal Domenico Gelonese 649 7.7
Independent Liberal Glenn Bain 639 7.6
Independent Frank Barbaro 612 7.3
Independent Juliette Lockwood 571 6.8
Independent Du Zhigang 383 4.6
Independent Josephine Patterson 217 2.6
Total formal votes 8,398 97.8
Informal votes 190 2.2
Turnout 8,588

North

2022 South Australian local elections: North Ward
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Independent Phil Martin (elected) 878 36.0
Team Adelaide Mary Couros (elected) 659 27.1
Independent Sandy Wilkinson 410 16.8
Independent Valdis Dunis 289 11.9
Independent Robert Farnan 200 8.2
Total formal votes 2,436 98.0
Informal votes 50 2.0
Turnout 2,486

Central

2022 South Australian local elections: Central Ward
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Independent Labor Jing Li (elected) 508 15.4
Independent Carmel Noon (elected) 466 14.2
Team Adelaide Simon Hou (elected) 355 10.8
Team Adelaide Alexander Hyde 338 10.3
Independent Labor David Elliot (elected) 337 10.2
Independent Mark Hamilton 315 9.6
Independent Liberal Gagan Sharma 238 7.2
Team Adelaide Franz Knoll 176 5.3
Independent Ben Ayris 135 4.1
Independent Fiona Hui 119 3.6
Independent Alex Radda 97 2.9
Independent Cassandra Papalia 75 2.3
Independent Hugo Siu 68 2.1
Independent Tammy Vo 65 2.0
Total formal votes 3,292 97.3
Informal votes 90 2.7
Turnout 3,382

South

2022 South Australian local elections: South Ward
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Independent Greens Keiran Snape (elected) 758 27.4
Independent Colette Slight 277 10.0
Independent Labor Mark Siebentritt (elected) 275 9.9
Independent Liberal Henry Davis (elected) 263 9.5
Independent Theo Vlassis 241 8.7
Independent Greens Sean Cullen-Macaskill 199 7.2
Independent Ida Jonassen Llewellyn-Smith 165 5.7
Independent Labor Kimberlee Brown 146 5.3
Independent Liberal Helika Cruz 139 5.0
Independent Liberal Tim Scott 138 5.0
Independent Greens Sue McKay 115 4.2
Independent Param Ramanan 51 1.8
Total formal votes 2,767 97.3
Informal votes 76 2.7
Turnout 2,843

Aftermath

Shortly after the election, Electoral Commissioner Mick Sherry announced he was investigating suspected "voting irregularities" in Central Ward, after up to 20 central ward ballots were rejected from the count, including lord mayoral votes.[11]

On 15 December 2022, unsuccessful lord mayoral candidate Rex Patrick appealed the results with a petition in the Court of Disputed Returns and requested the lord mayoral and Central Ward elections be declared invalid.[2]

In December 2023, it was revealed that vote-tallying software malfunctioned, with successful candidate Jing Li's 31-vote margin over defeated councillor Alexander Hyde in Central Ward revised to 24 votes. Hyde has requested the election be declared void and recontested, however as of January 2024, this has not occurred.[12]

References

  1. "Council Elections". Electoral Commission SA. Archived from the original on 3 January 2024.
  2. 1 2 "Rex Patrick to appeal against Adelaide lord mayoral election result over ballot concerns". ABC News.
  3. ""Team Adelaide" wins City Council majority". InDaily.
  4. "Adelaide Lord Mayor responds to councillor's criticism of her modus operandi". ABC Listen.
  5. "Jane Lomax-Smith entry spells poll pain for Team Adelaide, Verschoor". The Advertiser.
  6. "'You have to accept democracy': Independents enjoy rare control of Adelaide City Council". CityMag.
  7. "Supplementary Election". City of Adelaide. 20 February 2020.
  8. "Greg Mackie elected as new central ward councillor". InDaily.
  9. "'There is no civility': Prominent city councillor resigns". CityMag.
  10. "Patrick, Moran link up to unseat Team Adelaide in council polls". The Advertiser.
  11. "Battle of the ballots: Rex Patrick to contest council election results". CityMag.
  12. "Adelaide City Council election vote counting software malfunctioned, leading to incorrect count". The Advertiser.
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