{"id":739467,"date":"2026-06-16T05:05:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T05:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/739467\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T05:05:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T05:05:20","slug":"south-australias-electoral-commissioner-mick-sherry-resigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/739467\/","title":{"rendered":"South Australia’s Electoral Commissioner Mick Sherry resigns"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Australia’s Electoral Commissioner Mick Sherry has resigned amid a review into the scandal-plagued state and Voice elections.<\/p>\n

The March elections were beset with problems, including misplaced ballots, inadequate polling booth staff and computer glitches.<\/p>\n

First Nations voters also alleged they experienced discrimination at polling booths.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr Sherry had been on personal leave since the elections.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"South<\/p>\n

Kyam Maher says legislation to delay council elections will be introduced to parliament today. (ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)<\/p>\n

Attorney-General and Special Minister of State Kyam Maher said Mr Sherry had made the choice to step down himself and would not comment on the specific reasons around his decision.<\/p>\n

“We were informed about it yesterday that he had tendered his resignation to the Governor, effective late July,” Mr Maher said.<\/p>\n

Former Australian electoral commissioner Tom Rogers had previously been appointed to lead an independent review of the management and oversight of the March polls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Electoral Commission of South Australia (ECSA) is also conducting its own review.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

There were a number of problems on the day of the SA state and First Nations Voice to Parliament elections. (ABC News: Trent Murphy)<\/p>\n

Councils face election delays<\/p>\n

Mr Sherry’s resignation comes as the state government plans to introduce legislation to delay local council elections until next year, following a request by the acting SA Electoral Commissioner Leah McLay.<\/p>\n

She asked for a delay as she believed there would be “insufficient” time to implement any recommended changes in time for the local elections which were set to be held in November.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr Maher said the state government would introduce legislation today to delay those elections until April 2027, affecting more than 60 councils across metropolitan and regional areas.<\/p>\n

“This is not something we do very lightly, we would prefer not to be in the position that we find ourselves in,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But having received that advice from the acting Electoral Commissioner [Leah McLay] that there could be significant problems plaguing local government elections, we had a responsibility as a government to consider that.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Leah McLay had previously requested local council elections be delayed until mid-2027. (ABC News: Lincoln Rothall)<\/p>\n

Mr Maher said he was confident a delay would “reduce the chance of problems occurring”.<\/p>\n

“The very clear advice from [ECSA] has been some of the same systems and processes that plagued the state election may not be rectified by November for the local government election,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Also, that they would have severe difficulty finding that workforce, about 1,000 casual people to stand up … before the report by the independent reviewer is handed down.”<\/p>\n

He added that if the parliament decided against passing the legislation, elections would “continue as they are currently planned” in November.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

More than 60 councils would be impacted by a delay. (ABC News: Daniel Taylor)<\/p>\n

In a statement, Ms McLay thanked the state government for considering her request and welcomed the “proposed legislative change before parliament”.<\/p>\n

“The [Electoral] Commission’s focus is on continuing to prepare for the elections and will deliver them in April, pending the passage of the legislation,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ms McLay will remain as the acting Electoral Commissioner once Mr Sherry’s resignation takes effect on July 24.<\/p>\n

Timing ‘not optimal’<\/p>\n

Local Government Association SA president Heather Holmes-Ross said moving the poll to April was “not brilliant”.<\/p>\n

“Running elections in November is the best in terms of time, but if they can’t be transparent and at the highest levels of integrity, then we can’t have them then,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s not optimal, but it’s something that we will abide by. We acknowledge the decision.”<\/p>\n

Ms Holmes-Ross said some councillors and mayors who had already made “personal and life choices” would still leave in November.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Heather Holmes-Ross is also the City of Mitcham mayor. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

She said newly-elected councillors would have little time to get up to speed with council processes before making “big decisions” around annual budgets by the end of June.<\/p>\n

“Luckily, I don’t think we’ll see full turnovers of chambers, so we will have our experienced elected members helping, but it does make it tricky,” Ms Holmes-Ross said.<\/p>\n

The proposed bill would also permanently move council ballots outside of the same year as state government elections, with subsequent polls after 2027 to be held every four years in November.<\/p>\n

“The upside of this is that our elections, we believe, from now on will be a year and a half apart and that works better for everyone,” Ms Holmes-Ross said.<\/p>\n

Voting in SA council elections is not compulsory, with only about a third of electors opting to cast a ballot each year.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Australia’s Electoral Commissioner Mick Sherry has resigned amid a review into the scandal-plagued state and Voice elections.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":739468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10968,3443,64,63,356910,213645,2893,231054,231053,356911,301140,44,23695,36767,1124],"class_list":["post-739467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-10968","tag-adelaide","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-council-elections","tag-councils","tag-delay","tag-ecsa","tag-electoral-commission","tag-lga","tag-mick-sherry","tag-news","tag-november","tag-sa","tag-south-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=739467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/739467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/739468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=739467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=739467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=739467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}