Tasmanians will have to wait until Saturday to find out the final make-up of the new parliament, with the state’s electoral commissioner saying the vote count is far from over.
Electoral Commissioner Andrew Hawkey said the intricate process of redistributing surplus votes from candidates who exceed their quotas means the final results will not be confirmed until the weekend.
He said the names of all 35 members of the lower house will be known by Saturday and pointed to two main reasons for the delay.
Firstly, postal votes remain open until 10am on Tuesday. The laborious task of physically redistributing ballot papers from candidates who received more votes than needed for election is also still underway.
When a candidate exceeds the quota, their surplus votes have to be redistributed based on voters’ second preferences.
This, he told Local Radio, is a time-consuming job that involves officials examining each ballot by hand.
In Braddon, where Premier Jeremy Rockliff pulled in well over two quotas, the redistribution alone will take hours of manual work.
Hawkey also noted that voter turnout has slipped again, with the return rate hovering just under 90% – down from 91% at the last two elections.
The final count will reveal whether any new players, including the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, have managed to secure a spot in Tasmania’s 35-seat lower house.
Among those already projected to secure seats are Bridget Archer for the Liberals in Bass, independent Peter George in Franklin and Liberal Marcus Vermey in Clark.
