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Australian Electoral Commission
It’s been two and a half days since the polls closed for the 2025 federal election, and the count continues to progress in AEC counting centres across the country.
Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope said that in the past two and half days AEC staff had counted:
“On election night we counted more votes in a single night than has ever occurred in Australia’s electoral history,” Mr Pope said.
“Since election night we have also managed to count the vast majority of postal votes that have been returned to the AEC by now – more than 1 million postal votes have been counted in total.”
“The days after election night always have some external focus on close seats – we understand that and prioritise further counts in those close seats where we can.”
“Given we managed to count so much on election night itself, the ability to count more votes in close contests often relies upon transport for interstate, overseas and postal votes coming back to the relevant local counting centre.”
“We can’t count votes that aren’t at local counting centres yet. Secure transport takes time and our motto is always 'right, not rushed'."
It is important to note that figures in the AEC’s Tally Room are only based on votes counted so far and do not represent a final turnout figure for the 2025 federal election.
Today, the AEC commences the ‘fresh scrutiny’ – this is the mandatory secondary count of all votes that have been counted so far.
“While fresh scrutiny doesn’t typically provide any additional results information to reflect on aside from some minor changes, it will provide some further clarity for seats that had their two-candidate-preferred (TCP) contests reset.”
Declaration votes are votes cast in envelopes – this includes interstate, overseas and postal votes. Each electoral division will continue to do counts of declaration votes as enough quantities are received back to local counting centres.
The ‘declaration vote scrutiny progress’ table on each division’s page on the tally room is the place to check the quantities of votes that are left to be counted in a contest and how many the AEC has completed so far.
The counting process can be complex for members of the media who don’t engage with the electoral process regularly.
The AEC's Virtual Tally Room has a significant amount of results data available. Information about the counting process is available on the AEC's website. Many electoral analysts and commentators provide regular commentary about likely outcomes based on the data (and are good sources for media representatives). The AEC’s media team is also available to explain the process for counting votes.
The AEC's website also contains a page explaining complex and unusual circumstances that can occur during the count for a federal election.
The AEC acknowledges the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters, culture and community. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.