See-saw count has Jordan Crugnale’s lead out to 228

THE counting of votes in the tight contest for the electorate of Bass took on the look of a see-saw on Wednesday, November 30 with the incumbent, Jordan Crugnale (Labor), increasing her lead of 53 votes over the Liberal’s Aaron Brown, to 228 votes.

Ms Crugnale had led the count at the end of election night, last Saturday, November 26 by 225 votes.

But now, with a further 3447 votes counted today, Wednesday, up to 77.67% of the 49,948 enrolled to vote in Bass, Ms Crugnale has restored her election night lead.

But with as many as 7000 votes yet to be counted, it’s still anyone’s race to win.

Ms Crugnale presently holds a 1% swing to Labor in the seat of Bass, against a widely varied state-wide swing to the Coalition, but where the local seat was rated notionally the Coalition’s by 0.7% before the poll.

So, at this stage, it’s a good result for Ms Crugnale, but clearly only if she holds the present margin.

Bass is now the second-closest count in the state, behind Pakenham where the Liberals’ David Farrelly leads by a paltry five votes from Labor’s Emma Vulin; 17,961 to 17,956 on a two-candidate preferred basis.

The tight contest in Bass underscores the seriousness of votes being turned away in Bass when upwards of seven polling places ran out of ballot papers.

The Victorian Electoral Commission claims one a “small number” of people failed to vote as a result of a lack of ballot papers, with some leaving their name so as to avoid a fine, but exactly how many were effectively denied a vote is anyone’s guess.

Included in the feedback on Facebook, about the lack of ballot papers in Bass, one reader commented: “Wonder what the vote may be if they hadn’t ran out ballot papers”.