The NT Electoral Commission has declared candidates for the Barkly Regional Council Patta ward by-election again following a ballot re-draw after the commission failed to receive a nomination due to a typographical error in the email address.

Commissioner Iain Loganathan said that because of the email address error, a nomination was not received by the Electoral Commission which, if it had been received, would have been accepted.

“The NT Electoral Commission sought legal advice on the matter and had to re-draw the ballot,” he said.

“In consideration of the circumstances, I took into account the further nomination and have declared the duly elected candidates and drawn of positions on the ballot paper for the by-election.”

Mr Loganathan said the candidate positions on the ballot paper were randomly drawn at the NT Electoral Commission office in Darwin Thursday afternoon.

There are two vacancies for the position of councillor in the Patta ward by-election and six candidates were declared in the following ballot paper order: Nungarayi Shirley Lewis, Brian (Jappanangka) Coleman, Clarissa Burgen, Elliot Mcadam, Sharen Lake, and Pennie Cowin.

Following a complaint after the first ballot draw on April 4, Mr Loganathan sought legal advice over the candidate nomination that was not received by the agency by the close of nominations.

“Brian Coleman contacted the NTEC on Thursday afternoon [April 4] inquiring as to why he had not been included in the declaration of nominations and was advised that no nomination form had been received by NTEC,” Mr Loganathan said in a statement on April 11.

Mr Coleman stated that he had submitted his nomination form to Barkly Regional Council on March 31, and the council confirmed they had received his nomination form on that date and emailed it to the NTEC that day.

Mr Coleman is a long-time resident of Tennant Creek and a musician.

There were two by-elections required for the council because four councillors quit suddenly, and mostly without explanation, on one day in mid-December.

There were two councillor vacancies in the Alyawarr ward and two candidates nominated thus former Barkly councillors Lucy Jackson and Mark Peterson had been declared duly elected last Thursday.

One of the four who had quit, Noel Hayes, told ABC radio Alice Springs the day after that he was angry about a lack of services to remote communities, but that he probably would not have quit if Mayor Jeffrey McLaughlin had resigned after his first charge of drug driving in September while he was driving a council car during business hours.

The charge was accompanied by charges of supplying less than a commercial quantity of a Schedule 2 drug, possessing less than a trafficable quantity of a Schedule 2 drug and cultivating less than a trafficable quantity of a prohibited plant.

He was charged with drug driving a second time less than five months later, but has maintained his innocence.

The chief executive officer Emma Bradbury recently resigned without explanation after the mayor had said councillors had granted her extra leave because of the good job she was doing.

The council has also not released a secret review into council operations done by a Melbourne law firm which was announced on September 23, the same day as the publication of an article by ABC which reported there had been a “flood of resignations amid allegations of bullying and mismanagement”. The article said Mr McLaughlin and Ms Bradbury had said the complaints were the “venting” of a “small group of disgruntled ex-employees”.

They both denied the allegations.

Early voting for Patta Ward electors will commence Saturday 29 April 2023 at the Barkly Regional Council office.