counting error puts seat in doubt

A counting error has thrown into doubt the Coalition win in the Victorian seat of Dunkley, with now only 600 votes between Labor and the Liberals.

The new uncertainty emerged as Labor and the Coalition appeared locked in a dead heat in the latest election count, and as negotiations began to form a likely minority government following Saturday’s cliffhanger poll.

The Australian Electoral Commission said today Dunkley, held by the Liberals since 1996, could now not yet be declared a win for Liberal MP Bruce Billson.

A spokeswoman for the AEC said someone in one booth mistakenly gave the Liberals an extra 400 votes.

The counting error was discovered during the “re-checking process” of all the ballot papers.

The error means the margin between the two parties has been reduced from 1000 to 600, with Labor candidate Helen Constas having 35,436 votes compared to Mr Billson’s 36,052.

The seat is now on a knife-edge and the winner cannot be officially declared until postal and absentee votes are counted.

Latest unofficial forecasts this morning had Labor and the Coalition each predicted to win 73 seats, short of the 76 required to form government in their own right, with the remaining four seats set to go to independents and the Australian Greens.

Electoral officials caution that some results could take days to finalise, as they wait to count postal votes.

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Posted by on Aug 23 2010. Filed under Local News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry