Liberals' mystery man finishes top of Cunningham ballot paper

On Friday the draw to determine the order of names on the ballot was held at Port Kembla for Cunningham, Whitlam and Gilmore.

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The Liberals' Marcus Uren landed the first place on the ballot, though he didn't attend the draw.

So he is still a mysterious figure, though he is not a local as a NSW Liberals spokesman said - according to a party member there on his behalf, he lives in Eagle Vale.

It's not be his first tilt at politics either; he ran on the Liberals ticket for the Campbelltown Council elections last year.

The major parties won the top spot on all three ballot papers, Stephen Jones, who was also absent from the draw, is in the No1 spot for Whitlam while former state Liberal minister Andrew Constance is in the same position in Gilmore.

His main rival in that seat - Labor's Fiona Phillips ended up at the bottom of the paper.

Though Mr Constance though positions on the ballot paper didn't matter too much.

"No, because the community's smart, the community knows who they're voting for," Mr Constance said.

"The only thing that I would urge and remind everybody about is you've got to number every square. It's not the state election where you only had to vote in one box, you've got to fill out every box."

Over at Whitlam the Greens' Jamie Dixon had to deal with being at the opposite end of the ballot paper.

"I think the best thing that I can say is at least I'm at one end of the ballot," Mr Dixon said.

"It's identifiable when people look. It's hard to be in the middle. Top would have been great, bottom's also good."

One of the claimed reasons finishing up the top is best is that it rakes in any donkey votes.

Mr Dixon said he can't see donkey votes being much of an issue.

"I think the people who are disengaged with politics now are just not going to fill out the ballot," he said.

"Our duty on polling booths is to make sure people fill out the ballot correctly, make sure they know what to do to make their ballot count.

"Being first or last, I don't think is going to mean that much of a difference in votes."

CUNNINGHAM

1 Marcus Uren (Liberal)

2 Benjamin Britton (UAP)

3 Alison Byrnes (ALP)

4 Alexis Garnaut-Miller (Citizens Party)

5 Dylan Green (Greens)

6 Michael Glover (Liberal Democrats)

7 Thomas Grogan (One Nation)

WHITLAM

1 Stephen Jones (ALP)

2 Michael Wheeler (Liberal Democrats)

3 Colin Hughes (One Nation)

4 Michael Cains (Liberals)

5 Allan Wode (UAP)

6 Jamie Dixon (Greens)

GILMORE

1 Andrew Constance (Liberal)

2 Nina Digiglio (Independent)

3 Carmel McCallum (Greens)

4 Jordan Maloney (UAP)

5 Jeremy Eid (One Nation)

6 Adrian Fadani (Liberal Democrats)

7 Fiona Phillips (ALP)

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