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Independent Nicolette Boele has dashed the Liberals’ hopes of another lower house seat, winning the Sydney seat of Bradfield by a tiny margin four weeks after the election.
It’s the last House of Representatives seat to be finalised, not affecting either of the major parties’ results, with Labor securing 94 seats to the Coalition’s 43.
The Sydney north shore seat race has been a rollercoaster ride, with several lead changes between Boele and Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian.
Following Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) guidelines for constituencies with margins of under 100 votes, Bradfield proceeded to a recount, with Katperian holding a slim lead of eight votes.
On Wednesday afternoon, the AEC announced Boele had won the seat by 26 votes, ending the Liberal Party’s 76-year hold on the seat.
The AEC said the recount was conducted in front of candidate-appointed scrutineers and included a new count of all first preferences, a re-examination of all informal votes, a complete recount of the two-candidate preferred count and full distribution of all preferences.
The AEC found two instances of people voting twice, but were satisfied these were “inadvertent and not deliberate”.
Kapterian thanked the AEC officials who undertook the recount, noting it had “created a different result” from the original count.
“I will now carefully review the two counts,” she said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.
Could there be a second election?
To contest the result, a petition must be filed with the Court of Disputed Returns within 40 days of the writ being returned.
The relevant candidate or party would need to plead their case to the court and cast sufficient doubt that the result was affected.
Scrutineers present throughout the recount could be taking notes on disputed papers or discrepancies, although there is no evidence so far to suggest that any impropriety occurred during the count.
Election analyst Ben Raue told SBS News a Liberal challenge of the result is unlikely given the margin.
“I suspect the Liberals might decide not to go ahead with it,” he said.
“At one stage during the initial tally, the margin was even tighter, fluctuating between two, three, or just a single vote … in such a case, it would have almost certainly been escalated to the court for resolution.”
Raue said there wasn’t much precedent for election results being taken to court. He pointed to the 2007 dispute in the Victorian seat of McEwen as the most recent example.
“That court case was launched when the Liberals were only leading by 12 votes,” he said. The Liberal Party ultimately won the case and increased its margin.
In 2016, Labor’s Cathy O’Toole won the Queensland seat of Herbert by a mere 37 votes, although a challenge to the court was not issued.
