Sunday, 8.30am: Logan City mayoral candidate Luke Smith has won the Logan City mayoralty.
Cr Smith has 41,303 votes ahead of his nearest challenger, Brett Raguse with 26,162.
This gives Cr Smith just on 49 per cent of the vote so far, according to Queensland Electoral Commission figures, with Mr Raguse having conceded.
Cr Smith said it was a humbling and exciting victory.
He said the fact that he decided not to engage in negative campaigning gave him victory.
“People stood all day out there in the heat for me. It was just great,’’ he said.
“We’re all very excited.
“It's all been about positive campaigning and not getting involved in the scuttlebutt.’’
A disappointed Mr Raguse said he wished Cr Smith well and had called him to offer congratulations.
He felt that he had lost the campaign after former mayor Pam Parker backed Cr Smith in the last week of the campaign after having said she would not support any candidate.
Cr Smith had capitalised on this by having signs at booths bearing her support.
“I also didn’t get my message out as well as I’d hoped,’’ he said.
“I always think voters get it right.
“Now it’s up to Luke to put his promises into place.’’
Mr Raguse said any negative campaigning had come from Cr Smith’s side, rather than his.
He said he would now concentrate on his real estate and other business interests.
Of the other candidates Ken Houliston has 5890 votes, John Freeman 7351 and Steve Shoard 3945.
The Logan election has not been without its issues.
Informal votes for the mayoral race passed 5000, with just 39 of 196 booths counted.
Voters in division 7 were irate after long queues formed in the heat to be handled by just one Queensland Electoral Commission booth worker.
The problem arose at the Greenbank Community Center Hall, Teviot Road, which is a split polling booth.
Voters from divisions 7 and 11 can both vote there but there was only one Queensland Electoral Commission staff member to handle division 7 traffic and five staff for division 11.
The QEC says it is not sure why divisional staff numbers were not split more evenly.
Meantime, voters in division 9 voters were reportedly turned away from the Park Ridge State High School polling booth when it ran out of ballot papers.
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1.30pm: Voter Trent Jeanes of Spring Mountain said he was confused about what division he was supposed to be voting in and who he should vote for when he arrived at the Greenbank State School polling booth.
“I wasn’t sure whether it was division 7 or 11. It’s very poor, the whole thing,’’ he said.
“They changed it a while back, maybe two or three months ago and I didn’t know where to go.’’
Mr Jeanes said the sausage sizzle made up for the confusion.
8.30am: LOGAN City voters were out early today voting to elect a mayor and councillors for the next four years.
Booths were busy right across the local authority.
Queensland Electoral Council figures show a total of 178,564 people are eligible to vote in Logan out of a population of more than 300,000.
Of these 92,050 are female and 86,514 male.
The main mayoral contenders are Luke Smith and Brett Raguse.
Others contesting the plum mayoral post are Ken Houliston, John Freedman and Steve Shoard.
Just one of the 12 council divisions is not being contested.
A total of 76 councils are being contested across the state and voters will also decide in a referendum on whether or not to give state parliamentarians fixed four-year terms, rather than three-year terms.
