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Australian Electoral Commission
The 2025 federal election count is Australia’s largest count ever and undoubtedly the most complex election count ever conducted.
Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope said that not only were more ballot papers counted on election night than ever before, but the AEC has counted more votes to this point of the process than ever as well.
“The nation already has clarity not just on who is forming government but on most House of Representatives and Senate seats around the nation,” Mr Pope said.
“While formal seat-by-seat result declarations by the AEC have yet to occur, since the election our further counting of postal votes and fresh preference counts have seen analysts make results predictions for seats like Goldstein, Ryan, Melbourne and others.”
“The nature of the counting process has changed for this election with more two-candidate preferred (TCP) resets and three-candidate preferred (3CP) counts required than ever before in order to get clarity on the results of some seats.”
“This increases the complexity of the AEC’s task but we’re still ahead of planning and election count timetables from past elections.”
A technical briefing was held yesterday with electoral analysts and media representatives about the progress of counting activities in close seats.
Fresh scrutiny (a mandatory secondary count of all ballot papers) is well progressed in all divisions. Preliminary scrutiny (electoral roll verification) has also been completed for the vast majority of postal votes received to date, and this is also now occurring for absent votes (votes cast out of area).
“We’re acutely aware of the focus on seats that continue to be remarked upon as having a result in doubt. This includes seats like Kooyong (Vic), Longman (QLD), Bean (ACT), Bradfield (NSW) and Bullwinkel (WA).”
“For all close seats we prioritise further counting activity where we can but it’s not a simple matter of putting on more people.”
“We’re rapidly approaching that point in the counting process where we’re getting through absolutely everything we have to hand in local counting centres and waiting for additional postal vote returns and votes coming back from interstate and over 100 countries overseas.”
“For particularly close seats, people will have to be patient. Transport and roll checks for declaration votes takes time and our processes are mandated by our legislation and guided by the principle of ‘right, not rushed’.”
Candidate-appointed scrutineers are in attendance at counting centres across Australia.
“Scrutineers are a critical and valuable part of the transparency of election counting processes,” Mr Pope said.
“We are seeing a large volume of scrutineers in some count centres which is important but it can understandably slow the activity down a little given their right to challenge formality decisions. In some cases, there are many more people scrutinising than counting which is quite normal for this stage of the process in close seats.”
Fresh scrutiny is a rolling activity that occurs for all ballot papers but is likely to be largely finalised by Tuesday 13 May.
Counts of interstate and other declaration votes received back to local counting centres will be undertaken throughout next week.
Postal votes will continue to be received back to local counting centres, albeit in lower quantities than seen this week, up until the legislated deadline for receipt which for this election is Friday 16 May.
“We’ll be counting what we receive as soon as we can after we receive and process it. This will include some weekend work planned around the work to hand in close seats,” Mr Pope said.
“Electoral analysts, media commentators and political participants and scrutineers have held democracy in such good stead for so long in part because of respect for our legislated processes and patience shown in the counting period – it’s fabulous to see that being the case once again.”
The Senate count has also progressed well with more than 6.1 million Senate ballot papers having completed their initial returning officer counts. Like the House of Representatives, the entire Senate count is open to candidate appointed scrutineers to observe.
“Nearly five million Senate ballot papers have been received at our state-based Central Senate Scrutiny sites now and this is where the process of capturing and validating the hundreds of millions of Senate preferences occurs.”
“While some Senate positions are known now, the full Senate count is always a reasonably lengthy process with final positions not known until the full distribution of preferences some weeks after election day.”
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.