The Maroondah Journal has reported on the launch of www.genuinecandidates.com, a website that has been established to assist the community with identifying the genuine candidates in the upcoming Maroondah City Council elections.

Cr Makin said the website was a source of information before an election. “It began as members of the community were concerned with candidates’ links to developers and dummy candidates. It’s there to educate the public on an ongoing trend that subverts democracy.”

The website identifies candidates that have been actively involved within local community groups and are not aligned with developers or the practice of using dummy candidates. A dummy candidate is where someone runs for council simply to direct preferences to another candidate.

A number of candidates were not included on the website since they were unable to explain why they were receiving preferences without reciprocating. As an example there are candidates who receive second preferences from a number of candidates without returning similar preferences. This is a clear sign of a candidate that uses dummy candidates.

Perhaps unsurprisingly some non-genuine candidates have protested over the establishment of the website and are trying to close it down. Fortunately the members of the community who established the site will not give to to these non-genuine candidates.

I strongly urge the community to examine the preferences of each candidate to avoid those that are using dummy candidates and subverting local democracy. For further information please visit www.genuinecandidates.com.