The Electoral Commission of Queensland (ECQ) has declared the results in a total of five of the 93 electorates in last month’s State poll.
In a statement yesterday (10 November), the ECQ said around 85 per cent of potential votes had been counted.
“This figure compares the number of votes counted with the number of electors,” the Commission said.
“As not every elector votes, this figure will not reach 100 per cent,” it said.
“Declarations can only be made when the result of the official count is mathematically certain.”
It said that in most electorates that had not already been declared, the ECQ had to wait until yesterday’s (Tuesday) deadline for the return of postal votes then undertake a distribution of preferences before officially declaring the result.
“There were almost 900,000 postal votes issued for the 2020 State General Election, compared with around 367,000 postal votes for the 2017 State General Election,” it said.
However, the ECQ was aware that around 100,000 electors who requested a postal vote chose instead to vote in person or by telephone.
“For the full count to be completed, a full distribution of preferences needs to be undertaken for each electorate in accordance with Queensland’s system of full preferential voting.
“This requires the allocation of preferences from candidates with fewer votes to the leading candidates,” the Commission said.
“To progress to a full distribution of preferences count, it must be clear which candidate has the fewest votes, so that their votes can be reallocated to the second preference candidate selected on each ballot paper.”
It said that where there were a lot of candidates contesting an election, the count might need to pause to wait for more votes to be available before it was clear which candidate had the fewest first preference votes.
“Based on current count status, the distribution of preferences to determine an outcome is likely to occur after the deadline for return of postal votes today (Wednesday),” the ECQ said.
