The 2025 federal election was historic in some ways.
It delivered probably the most dominant Labor win in a long time, and threw up a number of the closest-ever contests in seats equivalent to Bradfield and Goldstein.
Tim Wilson was declared the winner by fewer than 150 votes in Goldstein, in inner-Melbourne, however in Bradfield the total distribution of preferences left Liberal Gisele Kapterian solely eight votes forward of her opponent, unbiased candidate Nicolette Boele. A recount shall be wanted to verify the winner of the inner-Sydney seat.
It’s not the primary time voters have spent weeks ready for a end result or that only a handful of ballots have decided who turns into the MP.
Listed below are just a few of the more moderen examples of extraordinarily shut counts.
An excruciating Palmer problem
The final time the Australian Electoral Fee (AEC) did a poll recount was 2016, within the Queensland seat of Herbert, primarily based round Townsville.
Voters needed to wait almost a month after election day (2 July) to finalise their new native member.
On the finish of the two-candidate most popular depend between Labor’s Cathy O’Toole and the LNP’s Ewan Jones, who had held the seat since 2010, O’Toole was simply eight votes forward.
The AEC went to a recount on 21 July, 19 days after polling day. Ten days later, O’Toole was declared the winner by 37 votes.
Talking throughout the recount, O’Toole mentioned: “I won’t say it hasn’t been stressful at times … For me, it’s put a whole new spin on the term ‘down to the wire’.”
In 2013, there was a recount in one other Queensland seat, Fairfax, on the northern Sunshine Coast.
The seat had been held by the Liberals since 1990, however in 2013 the brand new LNP candidate, Ted O’Brien – now the celebration’s deputy chief – confronted an upset by the hands of Clive Palmer.
On the finish of the two-candidate-preferred depend, Palmer was simply seven votes forward, prompting a recount.
It become one of many longest ever, as Palmer’s scrutineers challenged so lots of his opponent’s votes.
Kevin Bonham, a psephologist, says this degree of vote difficult is rare.
“They weren’t challenging every adverse vote, but they were challenging most of them, and that is unusual,” he says.
“Normally, the number of votes challenged is quite a small proportion … experienced scrutineers know that there are some votes where there’s no point in challenging … because they know it’s going to waste the AEC’s time.”
The 2013 election was held on 7 September. The recount started on 3 October and didn’t end till 4 weeks later.
Palmer received the seat by 53 votes. He didn’t run within the subsequent election, and O’Brien has held it since.
Earlier than that, the latest recount was in 2007, within the seat of McEwan, north-west of Melbourne.
On the finish of the two-candidate-preferred depend, Labor’s Rob Mitchell was six votes forward of the Liberal MP, Fran Bailey, who had held the seat for greater than a decade.
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Bailey requested the AEC to carry out a recount, which discovered she had received the seat by 12 votes.
Mitchell says he was “pacing up and down the corridor” throughout that recount, with candidates not allowed within the room.
“For the candidate, obviously your stress levels are through the roof because you know there’s nothing you can do,” he says.
The 2007 election was held on 24 November, the recount started on 12 December, and the AEC declared the seat for Bailey on 21 December.
Mitchell then challenged the end result within the particular courtroom of disputed returns, heard by excessive courtroom justices.
He claimed voters’ intentions in most of the 640 rejected ballots had been clear, regardless that their handwriting was poor. However the software was dismissed, and Bailey retained the seat till she retired earlier than the 2010 election, when Mitchell received. He has held the seat since.
Earlier than turning into an MP, Mitchell had additionally been a scrutineer for different Labor candidates and says the environment was “intense”.
“Your object is to knock out as many of the other person’s [votes] as you can … it’s very intense, you’ve got the AEC counters there trying to do their job and you’re standing looking over their shoulders. You can’t touch the table, you’re not allowed to touch a ballot paper, and you’ve got to be very short and succinct when you’re talking to staff.”
Election decider
There was just one event when a seat determined by just a few votes helped decide the entire election.
It was 1961 and the Liberal MP within the south-east Queensland seat of Moreton, James Killen, was holding off a problem from Labor.
He received by simply 130 votes, which city delusion says got here on account of preferences from the Communist celebration, however others say got here from preferences from the Democratic Labor celebration, which had break up from the ALP in 1955.
Bonham says it was preferences from each that received Killen over the road.
“The Communist candidate actually helped the Labor candidate more than Killen … but a small number of [Communist preferences] went to the Liberals,” he says.
“If they had flowed 100% to Labor, Labor would have won the seat, and that would have tied the election, and then you would have had a very interesting situation.”
Because it was, Robert Menzies led the Liberal-Nation Coalition to a two-seat majority, regardless of Labor, below Arthur Calwell, accumulating 47.9% of the first vote. It could take Labor one other 11 years to achieve authorities below Gough Whitlam.
