Election FAQs

Local Government Elections are held every two years on the third Saturday in October.

The next City of Fremantle Local Government Election will be held on Saturday 18 October 2025.

The elections will be conducted by the Western Australian Electoral Commission (WAEC) as a postal election. Election Packages containing information on the candidates, instructions on how to vote, the ballot paper, and the return envelopes will be posted to electors about three weeks before the Election Day.

Votes will be counted after 6pm on Election Day.

As soon as the Western Australian Electoral Commission can finalise the counting of votes.

Optional preferential voting is the voting system for local government elections.

Preferential voting is the same method used in state and federal elections. Optional preferential voting means you are not required to provide all preferences in casting your vote.

Optional preferential voting means that to be elected you need to either achieve a majority of votes in the count for a single vacancy or a quota of votes where there is more than one vacancy to be filled. As a result, the candidates elected are more representative of the majority of voters.

The ‘optional preferential voting’ system is used for local government elections. This is the same method used in state and federal elections. Electors indicate the candidates, of their choice by numbering a box or boxes, instead of ticking a box or boxes.

The Western Australian Electoral Commission and the City of Fremantle will be conducting the count using the CountWA computer software.

For any other information or for more detail on a particular topic contact

T 1300 MY FREO (1300 693 736)
E elections@fremantle.wa.gov.au

Or further information can be obtained by visiting Western Australian Electoral Commission

The state government is reforming the Local Government Act 1995 (the Act). The reforms are aimed at ensuring local governments better serve residents and ratepayers. The reforms have been crafted in consultation with the local government sector.

As part of the Local Government Reforms, the following electoral reforms were implemented for the October 2023 elections (state-wide):

1. Introducing optional preferential voting, bringing local government elections back in line with State and Federal elections and restoring the right of electors to express preferences.
2.  Requiring public election of the mayor or president for all larger councils.
3. Changes in representation including aligning the size of councils with the size of the population of each local government area.

Yes, the following changes were implemented for the 2023 election: (links to be updated when pages are live)

1. Introducing optional preferential voting (note, this is a is a Local Government Act legislation change being implemented by the WA Government state-wide).
2. Changes in representation including aligning the size of councils with the size of the population of each local government area. Read more on this here.

Public election of the Mayor is already in effect at the City of Fremantle.

Full details about the reforms can be found on the Dept Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries website here.