Update 6pm Friday, May 9:
THE Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) has completed counting 81 polling places, special voting booths including hospitals and postal votes as part of a three-candidate preferred count in the electorate of Monash.
The figures show the gap between Labor candidate Tully Fletcher and independent Deb Leonard widening by the end of the day on Friday, to the affect that some analysts have called the result for the Liberals’ Mary Aldred.
After the assessment of voting across those 81 polling places and postal ballots etc, Ms Aldred has 46.38 per cent of the votes in a provisional distribution of the preferences from minor party candidates.
But, in the potentially crucial contest, it seems unlikely now that Ms Leonard will get past Mr Fletcher into second place and get the benefit of Labor preferences.
In any case, the flow of preferences from those who preferred Labor above either the Liberals or Ms Leonard would need to be extremely tight if she was to overcome Ms Aldred’s hefty lead.
The result in the seat of Monash is yet to be officially declared with a total of 101,499 counted from an enrolment of eligible voters of 116,527 because postal ballots can still arrive as late as Friday, May 16.
However, it’s unlikely that a large enough number of votes to make a difference is still outstanding.
The three-candidate preferred (3CP) count in Monash is as follows:
FLETCHER, Tully (Australian Labor Party) 25,800 - 27.32%
ALDRED, Mary (Liberal) 43,798 - 46.38%
LEONARD, Deb Independent 24,832 - 26.30%.
First preference voting in Monash
- ROBINSON, Kuljeet Kaur 7454 votes 7.87%
- FLETCHER, Tully 19,115 votes 20.19%
- BROADBENT, Russell 9764 votes, 10.31%
- ALDRED, Mary 30,568 votes, 32.29%
- LEONARD, Deb 16,423 votes, 17.35%
- DETHLEFS, Geoff 1640 votes, 1.73%
- O'REILLY, David 3128 votes, 3.30%
- STEELE, Terence 4251 votes, 4.49%
- WEHBE, Alex 2325 votes, 2.46%
- Formal 94,668 votes, 94.22%
- Informal 5810 votes, 5.78%
- Total votes 100,478.
- Eligible electors in Monash:116,527.