Across all the council elections held recently, the voter participation was down by more than 50 percent with only a few exceptions. In the Shire of Gingin’s Ledge Point Ward, the voter participation was 52.4 percent.

The Sun City News understands Jan Court, the successful candidate who received 206 votes to 227 votes submitted, campaigned heavily encouraging residents to vote.

Across the City of Wanneroo, most residents will tell you they didn’t see or hear from any of their candidates.

In the mayoral election, only 18,114 people bothered to vote out of the 83,850 voting papers sent out. Tracey Roberts from Mindarie was elected as Mayor of Wanneroo for the next four years. Ms Roberts received 6,832 votes (37.72 percent) defeating Dianne Guise with 6,198 votes (34.22 percent); Alan Blencowe with 3,304 votes (18.24 percent) and Martina Thomas with 1,780 votes (9.83 percent).

North Ward Councillor Norm Hewer was re-elected with 798 votes (36.01 percent), defeating Michael Mc Keand with 675 votes (30.46 percent); Stephen Lindau with 471 votes (21.25 percent) and Garrick Garvey with 272 votes (12.27 percent).

Coastal Ward re-elected Bob Smithson and new comer, Russell Driver to represent their ward. Frank Cvitan was re-elected as Central Ward councillor after being defeated in the 2009 council election.

Councillors Nguyet-Anh Troung and Alan Blencowe were re-elected to the South Ward, while Denis Hayden was elected as the third councillor for the South Ward. Mr Hayden topped the voting in the South Ward, polling more votes than the two incumbent councillors.

With such low voter turnout it poses the question: Is a review of the voting system for municipal council elections needed to effectively engage voters?

Voting in Local Government elections is not compulsory, but many people believe the WA State Government should review and overhaul the entire Local Government Act.