The results of the East Gippsland Shire Council elections will be declared next Tuesday.

The Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) has finished counting the first batch of votes in the elections.

To date more than 27,093 votes have been collated with about a further 7000 to be counted over the next couple of days and early next week.

Leading the race to date is 25- year-old Kirsten Van Diggele, of Eagle Point, the youngest candidate in the election.

Ms Van Diggele had captured 2550 votes at the close of counting of the first batch of votes on Monday.

Ms Van Diggele, who works as a youth participation advocacy officer, ran a good campaign, maintaining an active presence on social media and posters plastered in prominent locations throughout East Gippsland.

For several days her name flashed across a roadside message board at the Nicholson General Store, urging voted to ‘Vote 1 Kirsten Van Diggele’.

Ms Van Diggele credits her mother, Karin Reed, with helping run her campaign.

“Mum and my step-dad, Peter, went around putting up posters and mum was really helpful in advising me of emails,” Kirsten said.

Ms Van Diggele said while she’s overjoyed to be the frontrunner in election counting, she won’t be celebrating just yet.

“I know it’s very unlikely it will change, but there’s still preferences to distributed so I’m hoping they won’t change things too much,” she said.

Ms Van Diggele was still pinching herself over leading the race to the council chamber when the Advertiser caught up with her yesterday in Paynesville.

“I’m a little bit surprised but quite proud my campaign worked well,” she said.

“I’m pleased the community is supportive of a young person going on council.”

Ms Van Diggele says she was aware of “a lot of younger people voted for me”.

Mendy Urie was closely trailing Ms Van Diggele with 2419 votes on Monday, followed by Sonia Buckley, from Benambra, in third position collecting 2053 votes.

Arthur Allen, of Lakes Entrance is in fourth spot with Trevor Stow, of Bairnsdale, in fifth position.

The final four positions in the council chamber are less predictable, particularly once preferences are distributed.

However, Jane Greacen, John White, Mark Reeves, Tom Crook, Tim Behan and Dick Ellis are the potential contenders.

The Advertiser understands that just under 1000 votes were disqualified because ballot papers were either marked incorrectly or informally.

The VEC had been posting the updated results on its office window in Service Street up until Monday when that ceased.

The East Gippsland manager of the VEC, Sandra Wood, told the Advertiser that it had been mistake to show the results publicly before they were declared.

“We misinterpreted the rules from the VEC,” she said.

IMAGE: Twenty-five-year-old Kirsten Van Diggele is leading the race in counting for the East Gippsland Shire Council elections. Ms Van Diggele was photographed in Paynesville on Wednesday walking her dog, Tommy. K438-711