General News
8 October, 2024
Five candidates to run for Traeger in state election
There were two nominations at the eleventh hour.
Five candidates will contest the seat of Traeger at the state election after One Nation and the Greens lodged last-minute nominations with the Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ).
With early votes able to be cast as soon as next Monday, Greens candidate Louise Raynaud and One Nation’s Peter Rawle have joined KAP incumbent Robbie Katter, Labor’s Georgia Heath and the LNP’s Yvonne Tunney in the October 26 election battle.
Nominations for candidates closed at noon on Tuesday and soon after the electorate’s returning officer drew the official ballot paper from the temporary Mount Isa ECQ offices on Rodeo Drive.
Each candidate’s name was sealed in an individual envelope and placed into a red mobile polling ballot box before the returning officer drew out each envelope to mark the official order of names to be placed on the vote ballots.
One Nation drew top of the ballot followed by LNP, KAP, Greens and Labor.
Ms Heath, who was the only candidate who attended the ballot draw, encouraged all residents to vote.
“I think democracy is very important in a big electorate such as Traeger, so everyone should put up their hand to vote,” she told North West Weekly.
More than 56,000 Traeger ballots will be printed in Brisbane in the coming days.
Vast rural electorates such as Traeger, Cook and Gregory are given priority in the early printing schedule as they require the largest distribution networks.
There will be about 2000 ballots placed into secure storage at each of the 25 polling locations across the 430,000km2 Traeger electorate in the coming days.
Each of the four early polling centres at Mount Isa, Cloncurry, Normanton and Charters Towers will have its own printer that creates individual ballots to be used for any votes cast prior to the official October 26 election day.
There had only been 530 postal vote applications lodged at the time of print, far fewer than the 2000 anticipated by ECQ.