By Simon Atkinson for BBC News
Ryan Bayldon-Lumsden has been granted bail so has been free to campaign ahead of elections to be held on Saturday. Photo: 123rf
Outside an Australian community centre, local election candidates make last-ditch efforts to win over people who are filing into the makeshift polling station.
Most voters are too pre-occupied trying to dodge the flyer-thrusting politicians to notice a clue that this is not your ordinary campaign for a seat on the City of Gold Coast council.
Incumbent councillor Ryan Bayldon-Lumsden is seeking re-election.
But concealed beneath his beige trousers is the outline of an electronic ankle bracelet - a device which allows police to track his movements.
The 31-year-old is charged with murdering his stepfather, Robert Lumsden, at the family's home in August last year.
Further details about the proceedings can't be reported at the moment for legal reasons, but his lawyers have indicated at a pre-trial hearing that he will plead not guilty.
And because a Queensland Supreme Court judge granted him bail, he is allowed to campaign ahead of Saturday's election - becoming perhaps the only Australian in recent history fighting both a political battle and a murder charge simultaneously.
'Voters always get it right'
Deciding to stand for public office again has been called "selfish", "strange", "entitled" and "unbelievable".
But when approached by the BBC outside the polling booth at Runaway Bay, Bayldon-Lumsden is defiant.
"I believe democracy is the most important thing, and voters always get it right," he said.
"So if voters want me, they'll choose to re-elect me. And if voters don't want me, they'll vote for someone else."
But few think it is that simple.
After being charged, Bayldon-Lumsden was suspended from the council, while still receiving his full salary of A$160,000 (NZ$171,000) a year.
Critics say this means almost 50,000 people in his area have not had a voice on the local council.
"We've had issues from parks simply not being mowed, right through to major development applications going through our community, without actually having someone sitting at the table to represent us," said one of his rival candidates Joe Wilkinson.
If Bayldon-Lumsden were to be re-elected, it's far from clear if or when he would be able to resume office.
Deciding whether to suspend him again - and leave residents without a councillor once more - would fall on the Queensland Minister for Local Government, Meaghan Scanlon.
She would need to "consider the public interest factors involved in this matter and decide whether to exercise intervention powers", her department said, though no decision will be made until after the election.
This week Scanlon said she wanted to be "really clear" that neither she, the state's premier, nor their offices "have had any conversations with that councillor or their legal team" following his suspension.
She was responding to rumours swirling in the community that the murder suspect had been told he would not be suspended again if re-elected on Saturday.
And should he win, Bayldon-Lumsden argues he must be allowed back into the job and the council chamber.
"There's nothing that requires a suspension," he said.
"Democracy should be the priority here, so if the community decides they want me to stay as their representative, then that should be the case.
"I think it'd be a brave state government to go against the will of the people in a democratic election."
'Anyone but Ryan'
With Australia's compulsory voting system, turnout will be high. His five rival candidates have banded together in a policy that one summed up as "anyone but Ryan".
These elections feature preferential voting, allowing constituents to rank their favoured candidates in order.
"We're encouraging people to put Ryan last," said Jenna Schroeder, who like all candidates in the Division Seven district, is running as an independent.
Although the killing was huge news locally, she estimates up to 40 percent of voters do not realise the implications politically.
"I have known Ryan for quite a while and this all came as a shock," Schroeder said.
"I can appreciate that people really like him as a person, but we have to separate that person from the candidate and look at the community, because that's what a councillor does, right?
"They represent the community. And if we don't have someone doing that, we need to let people know."
Another contender in Saturday's race, Edward Sarroff, believed Bayldon-Lumsden should sort out his legal case before trying to get back into politics.
"He's got very serious charges that he needs to deal with in his personal life," Sarroff said.
"I feel that the community, to an extent, have romanticised it. They want to feel like they're helping this guy out... That's with the courts.
"No one's denying he's done good work for the community. The problem is, he's not able to do any work for the community right now."
It will be many months before his criminal case comes to trial.
But by Saturday night, it will become clearer whether Bayldon-Lumsden has kept his political dream alive, for now at least.
This story was first published by the BBC.
