{"id":870303,"date":"2026-06-16T03:48:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T03:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/870303\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T03:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T03:48:19","slug":"south-australias-electoral-commissioner-mick-sherry-resigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/870303\/","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 <\/strong>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 67 councils.<\/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

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","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":3,"featured_media":870304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[12086,25403,4740,354181,108132,6994,242096,176803,354182,306147,50,16361,139837,6743],"class_list":["post-870303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-12086","tag-adelaide","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"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116757747077835468","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}