Australians voting in the 2025 election at London House. The AEC is waiting for additional postal vote returns and votes coming back from interstate and over 100 countries overseas. Photo: AEC.
The Australian Electoral Commission has described the 2025 federal election count as the largest and most complex election ever conducted.
With just a handful of Lower House seats remaining undecided, the AEC counted more ballot papers on the 3 May election night than ever before, as well as more incoming votes to this stage of the process.
The mandatory secondary count of all ballot papers, known as fresh scrutiny, has progressed well in all divisions, and preliminary scrutiny (electoral roll verification) has also been completed for the vast majority of postal votes received to date.
This is also now occurring for absent votes, or votes cast out of area.
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 this week.
Postal votes will continue to be received back at local counting centres, albeit in lower quantities this week, up until the legislated deadline for receipt, which for this election is Friday (16 May).
Acting Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope said the nation already has clarity not just on who is forming government, but on most House of Representatives and Senate seats around the nation.
“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,” he said.
“This increases the complexity of the AEC’s task, but we’re still ahead of planning and election count timetables from past elections.
“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 take time, and our processes are mandated by our legislation and guided by the principle of ‘right, not rushed’.
Mr Pope said that while scrutineers are a “critical and valuable” part of the transparency of election counting processes, their presence slows down the count.
“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,” he said.
“In some cases, there are many more people scrutinising than counting, which is quite normal for this stage of the process in close seats.”
The Senate count has also progressed well, with more than 6.1 million Senate ballot papers having completed their initial returning officer counts.
Like for the House of Representatives, the entire Senate count is open to candidate-appointed scrutineers to observe.
By last weekend, almost 5 million Senate ballot papers had been received at the AEC’s state-based Central Senate Scrutiny sites, 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,” Mr Pope said.
