More than 14,000 fail to cast allowable vote

MORE than 14,000 Gold Coast voters failed to correctly fill out their ballot papers on election day.

The number of informal votes from the city jumped from 8145 at the 2015 election to 14,023 over the weekend across the Gold Coast’s 11 state seats.

Political experts say the spike was partially the result of the reintroduction of manda- tory preferential

State polls.

The lowest number on informal votes was in the northern seat of Broadwater where the LNP’s David Crisafulli convincingly won, while the largest was in Mermaid Beach, held by long-serving LNP incumbent Ray Stevens. Informal votes in the close seats of Gaven and Bonney topped 1500 and 1300 respectively. voting in