Hunter-based Liberal Party state executive member Blake Keating has joined calls for the party's state president Don Harwin and state director Richard Shields to resign over the bungling of local government nominations.
The "unmitigated disaster" has left as many as 140 candidates missing from up to 18 councils in NSW.
In a scathing letter to the state council Mr Keating, who is a country and regional representative on the party's governing body, outlined how months of chaos and dysfunction involving a system of electronic ballots had led to Wednesday's failure to register many of its candidates.
"The NSW Liberal Party has known that these elections have been scheduled for the last three years, and has known and had time to prepare for the day that nominations closed for the entirety of those three years," he wrote.
"The fact that the administration of our party and the leadership of the state executive is so poor that we would fail to submit nomination forms for an election we knew was occurring three years in advance is a testament to just how deep the crisis of leadership has gotten in the NSW Division,"
NSW Liberal leader Mark Speakman labelled the failure to nominate candidates a "monumental debacle" and demanded Mr Shields "fall on his sword" after the state director refused to front up to parliament to explain.
Mr Keating said it was critical that the party's NSW division had a new state president and state director as soon as was humanly possible.
"I have serious doubts as to the capacity of the administrative leadership of the party and the leadership of the state executive," he wrote.
"They placed the staff at the secretariat in an impossible position and gave them a task that couldn't be accomplished, placing them under incredible stress and anguish.
"It's for these reasons that I call on the state president Don Harwin and the state director councillor Richard Shields to immediately resign and hold themselves accountable to the membership of the Liberal Party.
Deputy leader Natalie Ward also called for Mr Shields resignation following this "monumental stuff-up", saying she is "absolutely ropeable" that the party's head office failed to nominated candidates
"We believe his position is no longer tenable," Ms Ward told 2GB.
"It's unacceptable for the candidates, it's unacceptable for the voting public."
Mr Speakman said debacle was a "basic matter of competence and administration" and that he had "no inkling" the nomination process had gone awry.
"If you don't have the resources to handle these nominations, you call for more resources, and if you're still not satisfied there are enough resources, you let the candidates nominate themselves," he said.
Meanwhile party officials are investigating if there were any avenues for affected councillors and candidates to run in the September election, including asking the NSW Electoral Commission for leniency on the deadline.
