A fortnight after Anthony Albanese’s landslide election win, two seats may be headed towards a drawn-out recount.
Candidates for the Sydney-based seat of Bradfield will have to wait longer for a final result to be determined as counting goes down to the wire.
Counting for the more than 300 votes still outstanding will be carried out on Monday, after originally being set to be added to the tally on Friday.
Those votes will be added alongside the final set of postal votes, with Friday being the final day ballots can arrive by the post.
Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian is in the lead by just 43 votes over independent Nicolette Boele, with a formal recount in the seat set to take place.
An automatic recount is carried out by the n Electoral Commission if the final result is decided by fewer than 100 votes.
Sky News chief election analyst Tom Connell predicted the gap would remain below 100 votes, leading to a potentially lengthy recount process.
‘The duration of the recount depends on the extent to which scrutineers scrutinise the votes and debate their validity,’ Mr Connell said.
‘We may not ascertain the final result for this seat for several weeks.’
Bradfield was called by some media organisations for the Liberals, but the result was placed back in doubt after a strong surge in absent and postal votes to Ms Boele.
Meanwhile, independent MP Zoe Daniel has narrowed the gap further to Liberal candidate Tim Wilson in the Melbourne-based seat of Goldstein.
Ms Daniel is trailing the Liberals by 206 votes after reducing the lead from more than 1,500 as postal votes were counted.
However, just 162 votes are left to be counted along with last-minute postal votes, meaning Mr Wilson looks likely to win the seat.
Ms Daniel has not formally conceded the seat, and had said she would wait for all postal votes to be counted.
Mr Connell said despite the count continuing, it would be unlikely that Ms Daniel retained her seat.
‘She’s also got similar when it comes to absent votes that are early and that means she’s caught up (about) 500 votes and a similar on the other vote,’ he said.
‘It’s got her close, but with only at the moment a few hundreds votes left there’s no path for her to win that seat or indeed to be able to get a recount.’
As of Friday afternoon, Labor sit on 93 seats, with the coalition on 43, the Greens on one, with independents and minor parties taking 11.