The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has finalised the count for last month’s federal election, announcing two Senators for the ACT.
Australian Electoral Officer for the ACT, David Molnar said the successful candidates for the two Senate vacancies are (in order of their election) Katy Gallagher from the Australian Labor Party and Independent, David Pocock.
Mr Molnar said the distribution of preferences was conducted on Tuesday (14 June).
“As with all aspects of the count, the automated distribution of preferences undertaken today was open to scrutineers appointed by the candidates,” Mr Molnar said.
Staff of the AEC were still hard at work on ballot paper checks until earlier this week, with Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers describing the assurance activities as “mammoth” in scale and not well understood outside the walls of an AEC counting centre.
“To date, hundreds of millions of individual checks have occurred in what is a deliberately methodical, large scale and transparent manual exercise,” Mr Rogers said.
He said local teams, many of whom pulled out all the stops to deliver the vote in a six-week election campaign affected by COVID staffing issues, continued to work long hours and weekends following the election to deliver the rigorous procedural and legislative requirements that an Australian federal election demanded.
Mr Rogers said the counting assurance activities, now completed, were essential to the integrity of the process.
“‘Right, not rushed’ – It’s a key principle for us and despite an understandable external desire for things to be wrapped up quickly, it is a principle that maintains the strength of Australian elections,” the Commissioner said.
