The AEC finished the distribution of preferences for Bradfield late on Friday night, after a fascinating day that started with teal independent Nicolette Boele leading by 28 votes and ending with her 8 votes behind. This was a shift of 48 votes from Boele’s 40-vote margin at the end of the indicative 2CP count on Monday afternoon.
This has automatically triggered a recount, as the margin is less than 100 votes. The recount will commence on Monday.
To get a sense of what happened this week, I have analysed the media feed. The AEC has continued to publish data roughly ever fifteen minutes during the day, so it’s possible to go back in time and identify the margins at each point in time, and when each booth’s margin changed.
The count commenced late on Monday, and then resumed throughout Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I have shaded the night-time in grey, when no changes took place.
Until Friday morning, the numbers had bounced around, more likely favouring Kapterian, but Boele did quite well on Tuesday afternoon.
The big change took placed on Friday morning, when eleven votes were moved from Boele to Kapterian. This created a net change of 22 votes, reducing Boele’s lead from 29 votes to 7. This error was found in the St Ives pre-poll voting centre.
Some of the other biggest changes were:
- Kapterian gained five votes at Gordon West on Tuesday afternoon.
- Boele gained seven votes from six different booths shortly after 5pm on Tuesday evening
- Kapterian gained five votes at Castle Cove on Thursday at 11am
- Boele gained six votes at Gordon West on Thursday lunchtime, more than cancelling out the change on Tuesday.
- Kapterian gained four votes at Wahroonga on Friday afternoon.
I expect we will see more changes as the AEC conducts a full recount over the next two weeks. While all votes that were primary votes for other candidates were rechecked this week, the primary votes for Boele and Kapterian haven’t been modified quite so much.
Finally, I have listed here every time the margin changed in a booth, how much the margin changed and what time it was. They are sorted in order of time.
Ben
A few questions regarding the recount.
– Do they recheck every vote that was cast including rejected postals and pre poll provisionals in case those voters qualify after all.
– Is the recount format in a similar format so they do it booth by booth, postals, absents, etc.
– Will there be a progressive update of the counting with the count progress detailed as well?
@redistributed here’s your answers
No all the votes are just sent to a single counting centre in this case in Asquith. Yes every single vote is recheck and recounted. The count could take up to two weeks
@redistributed here’s your answers
No all the votes are just sent to a single counting centre in this case in Asquith. Yes every single vote is recheck and recounted. The count could take up to two weeks
https://www.aec.gov.au/media/2025/05-24.htm
I haven’t been this close to a recount before but I would assume they recheck rejected votes. I believe every part of the process is segmented by booth so yes the results by booth will be updated.
The AEC is doing a media briefing on Monday afternoon so I should know more after that.