Jordan Crugnale’s lead trimmed to 189

IT SEEMS that the race for the highly marginal seat of Bass will go right down to the wire with the Liberals’ Aaron Brown again closing the gap in vote counting on Saturday, December 3.

In voting totals posted by the Victorian Electoral Commission at 9.01pm on Saturday, after 87.32% of the votes had been counted, the lead by Labor’s Jordan Crugnale has been cut back from 283 earlier in the day to just 189 at the end of the day’s counting.

Jordan Crugnale has 20503 votes or 50.23% (two-candidate preferred) and Aaron Brown 20314 or 49.77%, a difference of 189..

But with as few as 2000 votes still to come, Mr Brown may be running out of opportunities to close the gap further.

It could be that just a handful of votes will decide the outcome in the electorate of Bass bringing into sharp focus the disastrous arrangements for voting in Bass on election day, where upwards of seven polling places ran out of ballot papers, and an unknown number of voters were turned away without voting.

The VEC has confirmed that at least seven polling booths “were running low” on ballot papers, but it has been confirmed by would-be voters who attended these places that at least four; Corinella, Bass, Newhaven and Koo Wee Rup ran out completely.

And it might be at the Corinella polling booth, where the monumental fail by the VEC was first highlighted, that as many as 200 voters missed out on casting their vote for the lack of ballot papers.

At the Federal Election on May 21, there was a turnout of 850 voters at Corinella but, so far, only 611 people have been recorded as voting there in the state election of Saturday, November 26.

At three of the other polling places, where ballots reportedly ran out, the difference between the Federal and State turnout wasn't quite so stark, as follows:

• Koo Wee Rup: State 1260, Federal 1290
• Bass: State 405, Federal 335
• Newhaven:  State 607, Federal 678
• Corinella: State 611, Federal- 850

Scrutineers for the candidates, who watch the votes as they are being counted, have confirmed that dozens of handwritten ballot papers have been admitted into the count in lieu of printed ballot papers.

The VEC also maintains that voters were invited to “come back later”, go to another booth where there may be ballot papers, or to leave their names, without voting, so that they wouldn’t get a fine.

It has been reported that some angry voters let electoral staff know what they were thinking as they exited the booth without being able to vote.

How many left their names, and how many failed to vote altogether? It may never be known.

“It is not possible to state this categorically if an elector chose to leave the queue without leaving their name with the election officials or waiting for additional ballot papers to arrive, it would not have been possible for our election officials to record this,” said the VEC this week.

“However, it’s worth remembering that if some electors did this, they may have returned at a later time to cast their vote, or cast their vote at another location, so it cannot be assumed that they did not vote at all.

“We are in the process of conducting rechecks in Bass District and reconciling material that was received back to the election office after election night. In the fullness of time, we will be able to provide the exact number of voters who did not wish to wait for replacement ballots to arrive and instead provided their details to election staff to ensure they would not be fined, but as mentioned, this figure is very small.”

It may be that the ultimate margin in the 2022 election in Bass will also be “very small”.