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Australian Electoral Commission
There will be 150 House of Representatives seats contested in the 2025 federal election. A significant proportion of ballot papers for each seat are counted on election night.
After a polling place closes at 6pm on election night AEC polling officials open and empty House of Representatives ballot boxes. Ballot papers are unfolded and checked for formality. All the number '1' votes (first preferences) are put into separate piles for each candidate and counted.
A significant proportion of votes cast at early voting centres are also counted on election night. This activity is also undertaken in central AEC counting centres.
Formality: Ballot papers that are not completed correctly are referred to as informal ballot papers. Informal ballot papers are placed in their own pile and counted separately.
Following the first preference count, AEC staff then conduct what is called a two-candidate-preferred (TCP) count. This involves the distribution of every formal ballot paper to one of the two candidates predicted to be the leading candidates in the contest (whoever has the higher preference).
The TCP count is a mandatory requirement. It is conducted to give an early indication of who is most likely to win each seat, as this is not always clear from first preferences.
The AEC selects two candidates based on a number of factors including historical voting patterns in previous elections. The names of the two candidates are kept confidential until the close of the voting.
In instances where it is evident that one or both of the leading candidates differ from the prediction, the TCP count is restarted and preferences are distributed to the correct two leading candidates in the days following election night.
Transparency: As with all stages of the counting process, the election night count is fully open to party-appointed scrutineers and all results are published on the AEC’s tally room in real time.
The days and weeks after election night include not just standard counting activities but also a significant amount of secure transport, enrolment validation and secondary verification counts (fresh scrutiny).
Transport takes time and in the days following election day millions of votes cast away from home (declaration votes) are securely packaged, transported back to the relevant AEC counting centre and validated against the electoral roll.
In addition, hundreds of thousands of postal votes will be delivered to AEC counting centres each day. These are then receipted and validated against the electoral roll before they are counted.
A declaration vote is cast when a person votes at a location, or in way, that does not allow them to be marked off the electoral roll at that time. This includes early voting centres outside their state or territory, mobile voting locations and postal votes.
A voter makes a declaration, providing sufficient details to enable the AEC to validate them against the electoral roll before including their ballot papers in the count. Once validated against the roll, the declaration envelope is opened face down and the ballot papers extracted, without being unfolded, and placed in a ballot box – thus preserving the secrecy of the vote.
The AEC is required to wait 13 days after election day to receive declaration votes before it can finalise counting.
In addition, hundreds of thousands of postal votes are delivered to AEC counting centres each day to be receipted and validated against the electoral roll before they can be counted.
Every single House of Representatives ballot paper is rechecked and recounted.
This mandatory secondary count is a process called fresh scrutiny, which provides validation of the original, indicative count. Fresh scrutiny commences from the Tuesday after election night.
The AEC must declare a formal result for a seat once the result is known. This often occurs a few days after election day.
The latest it can happen is the scheduled return of writs date, although it must occur before the writ is returned to the Governor-General.
The timeframe for determining a formal result is dependent on the margin in the seat and the number of votes received.
Once the votes are counted and a successful candidate has been determined there is a public declaration of the result for each House of Representatives seat.
To be able to legally declare a House of Representatives result, the margin in a contest must be greater than the potential number of votes left to be received and counted – AND the AEC must have completed the mandatory secondary count on those votes.
For the House of Representatives, the Electoral Commissioner will return the writs with the name of the successful candidate for each seat in the House of Representatives to the Governor-General for endorsement.
The AEC acknowledges the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognises their continuing connection to land, waters, culture and community. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.