THE race to claim a seat on Monash Council could be all but over for disgraced Liberal Party member Matthew Hammon after more than a third of his competitors preferenced him last.
Out of the 20 candidates running for a seat on the council in Oakleigh, seven put the young conservative as their last preference.
The seven are incumbent councillors Stefanie Perri and Stephen Dimopoulos and newcomers Denise Layton, Nga Hosking, John Chen, Graeme McKenzie and Lucy Athanasopoulos.
The highest preference Mr Hammon received, other than his own, was by Benjamin Djung, Catherine Jane Ettery, Tony Nalbant and Theo Zographos.
Mr Hammon came under fire last week for a series of tweets labelling Islam a "foul religion".
On September 18, shortly after riots in Sydney broke out over an anti-Islam film, Mr Hammon sent tweets saying: "It seems supporters of Islamic Terrorists [sic] have had a field day in Sydney today with their protests.
"I don't care if Muslims want to show their placards, that is fine but it just goes to show what a foul religion they represent. These are muslims [sic] preaching dangerous messages, those are the facts."
The following day, Mr Hammon resigned from the Liberal Party and deleted the tweets.
Glen Waverley candidate Geoff Lake brought the tweets to the attention of the council at last month's meeting and called for candidates to put Mr Hammon as their last preference for making the derogatory comments. He repeated his concerns last week.
"Despite Mr Hammon's removal last week from the Liberal Party for his offensive anti-Muslim comments, Liberals running in Oakleigh ward have preferenced to him before other non-Liberal members," Cr Lake said.
Mr Lake also accused Mr Hammon of being a dummy candidate used to feed preferences to Theo Zographos, another Liberal Party member and Oakleigh ward candidate.
Mr Zographos rejected these claims as false. Preference data released yesterday shows Mr Hammon put Mr Zographos as his second preference.
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