With just over half the eligible voters' ballot papers counted, the Longreach Regional Council by-election appears to be a two-horse race.
At the close of counting in the full postal vote election on Saturday night, Ingrid Miller had received 374 votes, or 29.11 per cent of the vote, and David Paterson had 343 votes, equating to 26.69pc.
Votes for the other three candidates were: Mark Kinsey 211 (16.42pc), Wes Irwin 194 (15.10pc), and Robert Kempson 163 (12.68pc).
From an enrolment of 2490 people, the Electoral Commission of Queensland counted 1290 ballots on Saturday night, or 51.81pc of possible votes.
The poll ends at 5pm on Tuesday, February 21 and so the result won't officially be known until all postal votes have been received and counted.
Speaking on Sunday afternoon, 35-year-old Ingrid Miller said she thought the result would be very close.
"I knew it would be - all the candidates bring something to the table," she said.
Currently the engineering technical officer in the council's infrastructure department, Ms Miller works on a lot of water, sewerage and road-related projects and said she had learnt a lot about council processes behind the scenes.
"I wanted to have the opportunity to give back to the community and help the region as a whole go forward," she said.
Ms Miller has previous local government experience, being elected to the Barcoo Shire Council in the 2020 election, but resigning almost a year later, citing personal and family reasons.
Longreach grazier David Paterson said a lot of votes had not yet been counted so it was a matter of waiting and seeing.
"I'm not overly confident, except that the outstanding votes may be rural ones delayed by rain, which may be an advantage to me," he said.
He has been on wild dog and rural lands committees for the Longreach Regional Council for the past nine years and said he'd enjoyed the input he'd been able to have via those.
"I was standing for council as the next step in that," he said.
The by-election is taking place due to the resignation of former councillor Tony Martin on November 25 last year.
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Sally Gall
Based at Blackall, CW Qld, where I've raised a family, run Merino sheep and beef cattle, and helped develop a region - its history, tourism, education and communications. Get in touch at 0427 575 955 if you've got a story idea for me.
Based at Blackall, CW Qld, where I've raised a family, run Merino sheep and beef cattle, and helped develop a region - its history, tourism, education and communications. Get in touch at 0427 575 955 if you've got a story idea for me.
