It was an unusual night of vote counting for the Lismore City Council Elections, as the low number of councillor votes counted meant there was still much uncertainty about the makeup of the 10 councillor seats.

Steve Krieg is very likely to be the Mayor of Lismore for the next four years after polling 48.17% of the vote. His nearest rival is former councillor Vanessa Ekins with 21.25% of the vote.

There are still another 12,711 votes to be counted; however, the trend was clear from early in the count. Even if Ms Ekins received 50% of the Labor preferences (primary vote 13.83% as of Saturday night's count), that would take her vote to around 28%, still well short of Mr Krieg.

The real battle looks to be for the final seat on council, which may well determine the balance of power.

Only 13,052 votes were counted on the night by the NSW Electoral Commission, which is a very low number. That leaves 18,895 votes to be counted on Monday.

As it stands, the Krieg Team has 4.66 quotas, in 2021, they had 4.87. The Greens have 2.94 quotas and have surpassed the 2021 quotas of 1.38. The increase in votes is likely to have come from former councillor Elly Bird's Our Sustainable Future party. This can also be the reason for the increase in the Labor vote from 1.16 quotas in 2021 to 2.06 quotas in 2024. Big Rob looks very likely to be voted in for a second term on council, increasing his vote from 0.67 quotas to 1.21 quotas.

A full quota means one seat on council. So, the scenario as it stands is:

• Krieg Team 4 seats plus Steve Krieg as Mayor, so 5 seats.
• The Greens 2 seats
• Labor 2 seats
• Big Rob 1 seat.

With 18,895 votes to be counted, including 10,548 pre-poll (before Saturday) votes, 1,984 postal and about 1,850 below-the-line votes, there are a few possibilities.

1. The Krieg Team gets a 5th seat (plus mayor) and retains the balance of power.
2. The Greens get a third seat, Labor holds on to two seats, and the Krieg Team has five seats. Big Rob potentially would have the balance of power if voting were simply a left/right scenario and not case-by-case.

Counting will resume on Monday morning, as there is no counting on Sunday.

Steve Krieg told the Lismore App that if the pre-poll votes follow the polling booth trends, the Krieg Team should be okay.

At this point, the overall vote is down in 2021. Is that a disappointment?

"I wouldn't say it's disappointing. I think what the people of Lismore have to understand is that we've made some relatively unpopular decisions over the last three or four months. But we're not driven by elections or popularity; we're driven by what's right for the community and for the Lismore LGA as a whole.

'I look at different polling booths that have come in, and we've increased our voter base, for example, in Nimbin, which we didn't think we would. And we were pretty solid in the results today, and I think, given the fact that there are 10,500 pre-poll votes to come in from that same polling booth, I think we will maintain our numbers of five councillors plus the mayor. And that's probably a fair indication of where Lismore is sitting.

"I'm looking forward to working with the new councillors who have been elected but also, the councillors that are coming back. We've got a really good team of people who are passionate about seeing Lismore grow and thrive, and that's always been our mantra. I think we can work together as a really productive council and get a lot of good things done."

Big Rob was very happy about his early voting numbers.

"The numbers are very good. Especially my mayoral numbers have gone up substantially. I'm very humbled by that, with people voting for me. I mean, obviously, I'm not going to be mayor, but that converts more votes to councillor votes.

"The numbers I'm seeing are a bit higher than that, but I'll hold at least one quota. All the experts have been messaging me and calling me, saying that I'm going to hold that one quota. So, the only issue of contention at the moment I've been talking about is whether or not the Krieg Team can hold on to their sixth quota or if they're going to drop one to The Greens, who could get three (3).

The Lismore attempted to contact Adam Guise and Vanessa Ekins from The Greens and Harper Dalton-Earls from Labor, but they had not returned our call at the time of writing.

We may not know the final council makeup until early October, as the NSW Electoral Commission said, "The count cannot be concluded until all postal votes have been returned to the Electoral Commissioner. The deadline for returning completed postal votes is 6pm on Friday, 27 September 2024. 

"When all the votes have been counted, the official announcement of the election results will be declared in writing. Results will be declared between 1 and 3 October 2024. " 

Now, we wait until voting continues on Monday to see if the picture becomes any clearer or if we need to wait another week.