27 June 2008

Voting will close in the Gippsland by-election on Saturday 28 June at 6pm sharp.

The best place to obtain results will be from the Virtual Tally Room (VTR) on the Australian Electoral Commission’s website at www.aec.gov.au where the first results will be available shortly after voting closes. The VTR will be updated every 90 seconds as results are entered throughout the night, and will show the progressive first preference results and the two-candidate-preferred (TCP) count. 

Media feed results

The AEC will also be providing election results through the media feed on the AEC website at http://www.aec.gov.au/media/mediafeed/. The media feed provides election results in raw data format (formatted as XML) for those users wishing to do further processing and formatting.

How many votes will be counted on Saturday night?

All the ordinary votes that are cast on Saturday will be counted on Saturday night. This is expected to be around 80% of votes.

When will the remaining votes be counted?

The counting of declaration votes (includes provisional votes, early votes and postal votes) is an ongoing process and will occur in the days following the election, after checking that the elector is entitled to vote in the Gippsland by-election.

Counting of early votes will begin on Sunday 29 June. These counts will continue in the days following election day and results will be available on the VTR as each count is completed.

Postal votes that are postmarked before 6pm on election day will be included in the by-election as long as they are received within 13 days after election day. Final results for the by-election will not be known until after this deadline has passed.

A fresh count of ordinary votes is also done in the post election period to ensure accuracy of the election night count.

The VTR for the Gippsland by-election will operate until all results are finalised.

For further information visit the AEC website at www.aec.gov.au or call 13 23 26.

Contact:
Margaret Flynn
(03) 9285 7132
0413 451 424