Queensland voters took it upon themselves to add candidates and deface ballot papers during local government elections at the weekend, creating a higher-than-normal amount of informal votes.

Electoral Commission Queensland (ECQ) believed more than 3 per cent of the votes counted so far had been informal votes.

Hand-drawn pictures and boxes for candidates such as musician Jimi Hendrix, NRL player Johnathan Thurston and US presidential hopeful Donald Trump featured on some slips.

ECQ assistant electoral commissioner Dermot Tiernan said the number of informal votes received was above average.

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"We like to target around 2.2 to 2.5 per cent and we're a bit above that so we have some work to do with the Queensland community," he told 612 ABC Brisbane.

"There are many reasons — some people get artistic on the day, and it was a hot day. People get up and they don't want to do it generally.

"I read an essay on Centrelink on one paper, and I saw someone filled out the ballot paper correctly but changed their minds so they initialled their changes like on a contract.

"Most people literally played join-the-dots and drew a line through everything, which means we can't tell what their intention was."

He said a ballot paper could still be valid if scrutineers could see the voter's intention.

"It has to be clear enough for us to determine what their choice was," he said. "It does happen."

'I really didn't want to vote'

Talkback caller Louie told 612 ABC Brisbane he voted under duress.

"There's no left or right anymore and I don't think there's anything happening," he said.

"I put a question mark through the whole lot, on every paper — the referendum and the council papers."

Caller and scrutineer George from Logan said he saw numerous informal votes as they counted on Saturday night.

"I saw six votes for Jimi Hendrix, at least eight votes for Donald Trump and they went to the effort to draw boxes," he said.

"The number of ballots with comments written on them was unreal. I would say at least 50 had comments on them like, 'I really didn't want to vote'."

Mr Tiernan said every election turns up different, interesting approaches to voting.

"[But] I would have been surprised if Johnathan Thurston didn't get a vote," he said.

The ECQ planned to examine further why informal votes trended higher than normal this year after counting is completed.

Glitches on electoral commission website

The Local Government Association and Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg have criticised how the ECQ handled the counting of local council votes on its website.

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Thousands of election watchers were blocked from accessing the commission's results page on Saturday night due to a faulty threat-protection system.

The system singled out anyone who refreshed the results site multiple times and blocked them from accessing results.

Among those affected was ABC analyst Antony Green who had to abandon his blog tracking the council elections.

The LGAQ chief executive Greg Hallam said he would consult with the ECQ about its performance.

"It's a very big job they do," Mr Hallam said. "There were three counts on the night including the referendum, that's not normally the case.

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"For a lot of councils around Queensland, and some of the outlying communities, they didn't feel like they got their money's worth on the night.

"The gripes we're hearing are particularly from the councillor ranks, who in some instances didn't have their votes started or couldn't find out what their votes were on the night, and some issues around the website where we couldn't get data."

Mr Springborg said he wanted the Attorney-General to find out if the ECQ was fully prepared.

"They were either under prepared because they didn't understand the mammoth nature of the task, or that they weren't provided enough resources," he said.

"But you should not expect this sort of underperformance in a first-world democracy like Queensland."

The ECQ has been contacted for comment, however it said on Saturday night its glitch had been quickly fixed.