Election night count to be delayed for up to 1 million votes

Date
    October 9, 2014


Almost one-third of the total Victorian election vote will remain uncounted on election night, suggesting it could take days to finalise the result.      

The Victorian Electoral Commission has revealed it is bracing for a 30 per cent jump in the number of early votes compared to the 2010 result.

More than 700,000 Victorians are expected to avoid the traditional Saturday crush by handing in a ballot paper up to two weeks before polling day at one of 100 early voting centres across the state.

The commission has confirmed it will be counting only "ordinary votes" on election night, plus a maximum of 2000 postal votes for each lower house electorate. But by 10 o'clock on Saturday night the count will cease to allow officials to avoid fatigue and allow remote rural booths to transfer votes to counting centres.

That means the counting of about 1 million votes could be delayed until the following week, including up to 707,000 postal votes, more than 220,000 absent votes, about 11,000 overseas votes and about 75,000 postal votes.

With both sides bracing for a knife edge result, these votes – which have traditionally tended to favour the conservative side of politics – could prove pivotal to the result.

A hung parliament is not seen as out of the question. Once again, the seats lining the Frankston rail line in Melbourne's south-east are likely to be crucial, with the regional centres of Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong also shaping up as key battle grounds.

Monash University political scientist Paul Strangio said although the election was still seven weeks away, at this stage it was difficult to see a substantial majority being won by either side.

He said the trend towards early voting could potentially make it more difficult to discern a clear result on election night.   

"It is hard to see at the moment the Coalition gaining ground in seats where they achieved a large swing last time," Dr Strangio said.

The Coalition won the "sandbelt" seat of Carrum with a 8.7 per cent swing in 2010, the seat of Bentleigh with a 7.1 per cent swing and the seat of Mordialloc with a 5.6 per cent swing.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victoria-state-election-2014/election-night-count-to-be-delayed-for-up-to-1-million-votes-20141009-113tbb.html#ixzz3FgWO7Fvw

It took a few days to finalise the result in 2010 as well. The final margin was 45 to 43.

If the election is fairly close, I am not expecting a concession on the night of the election.

I hope the Libs win... although I recognise that is unlikely.  But anything to shove it up Bam, Buzz and the unemployed weirdo - IMFULLOFIT.

it would be a joy to behold.

longweekend58 wrote on Oct 10^th, 2014 at 6:02pm:


Was quite clever how you worded that, but secretly we know how gutted you will be when the chips start falling.