In the Hare-Clark electoral system, the quota used to determine who is elected cannot be set until the total number of formal votes can be determined. This means that a quota cannot be set until after the cut-off date for the return of postal votes.
In the ACT that date is Friday 26 25 October. Once this date is passed and the last votes admitted to the count, the setting of the quota and the formal distribution of preferences can begin.
In Tasmania, Hare-Clark counts are conducted manually so there are no indicative preferences before the formal distribution of preferences.
In the ACT Hare-Clark counts are done electronically. Around one in five ballot papers are filled in electronically, and the remaining paper ballot papers are scanned into the computer system using optical character recognition (OCR) technology. The ACT Electoral Commission undertakes the scanning of ballot papers from polling places in the days between polling day and the cut-off for postal votes.
At regular intervals the Commission undertakes an interim distribution of preferences based on all edlectronic and scanned ballot papers at that time stored in the system. The Commission releases the details of the count, including the names of candidates who would have been elected on the present count.
So far the ACT Electoral Commission has conducted five interim distributions of preferences. The tables below list the candidates elected or defeated and the order of election through each of the counts.
The final distribution of preferences will take place on the afternoon of Saturday 27 October.
|Order Elected by Date|
|Candidate (Party)||21 Oct||23 Oct||24 Oct||25 Oct||26 Oct|
|*Zed Seselja (LIB)||Elected 1||Elected 1||Elected 1||Elected 1||Elected 1|
|*Joy Burch (ALP)||Elected 2||Elected 2||Elected 2||Elected 2||Elected 2|
|*Brendan Smyth (LIB)||Elected 3||Elected 3||Elected 3||Elected 3||Elected 3|
|Mick Gentleman (ALP)||Elected 4||Elected 4||Elected 4||Elected 4||Elected 4|
|Andrew Wall (LIB)||Elected 5||Elected 5||Elected 5||Elected 5||Elected 5|
|*Amanda Bresnam (GRN)||Defeated||Defeated||Defeated||Defeated||Defeated|
|% of Formal Vote||24.3||30.5||50.2||73.7||100.0|