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Speaker 1: Well. Joining me on the line right now from the

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Speaker 1: Australian Electoral Commission, it is Jeff Bloom.

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Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Jeff, Good morning, Katie, Thank you

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Speaker 2: so much for your time.

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Speaker 1: How are you and all your staff feeling after what

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Speaker 1: would have been an incredibly busy weekend?

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Speaker 3: Oh, very busy weekend. I'm in the Darwin counting center

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Speaker 3: at the moment. We've got somewhere between sixty or seventy

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Speaker 3: people today still counting Senate ballot papers being counted today.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, very big weekend, a lot of tired people,

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Speaker 3: but everyone's still got enough and engineers to get this

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Speaker 3: job done.

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Speaker 1: Now, how many people ended up turning up to vote

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Speaker 1: in the Northern Territory do we know yet?

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Speaker 3: We don't know the final turnout yet. And one of

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Speaker 3: the reasons is that we don't have all the declaration votes.

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Speaker 3: Of the declaration votes are the ballad papers that are

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Speaker 3: in the envelopes. We've still got many envelopes to come

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Speaker 3: back to us here in the Northern Territory. So for example,

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Speaker 3: people that use to secured telephone voting service, we don't

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Speaker 3: have those numbers back yet. There are also territory voters

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Speaker 3: that voted at an interstate location yet to come back

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Speaker 3: to us. That's typically between three and five thousand votes

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Speaker 3: to come back to us there, and of course postal votes.

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Speaker 3: So we are around eight thousand people on the territory

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Speaker 3: applied for a postal vote for this selection, and we

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Speaker 3: only have around four thousand of those back with us

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Speaker 3: at the moment, so plenty more envelopes to come back

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Speaker 3: and go into the count.

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Speaker 2: So Jeff talk us through what happens now.

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Speaker 1: For Let's go firstly with the seat of Solomon, which

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Speaker 1: does seem as though it's much more clear cut.

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Speaker 3: Well, that's right. Of course, we're not making any direct

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Speaker 3: declarations about the lower or upper House seats. We can't

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Speaker 3: do that until we've counted the votes. So I know

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Speaker 3: there's other commentators out there and parties and candidates that

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Speaker 3: are making their own declarations, but of course it's a

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Speaker 3: very different process for us. Our job now is to

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Speaker 3: count all of those votes, including the ones that we

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Speaker 3: don't have at the moment. So that'll take us through

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Speaker 3: this week and certainly into next week. Typically we would

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Speaker 3: be in a situation where we could declare both our

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Speaker 3: upper House in the third week after Holing weekend.

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Speaker 1: What about in a seat like Lingiari, though, which is

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Speaker 1: looking a much closer seat and a much closer race.

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Speaker 1: I understand, are you like what happens next? You need

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Speaker 1: to go the preferences or are you going through the

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Speaker 1: postal votes?

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Speaker 2: What's the process?

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Speaker 3: So it is about these declaration votes that we as

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Speaker 3: I said, we don't have them yet, and there's many

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Speaker 3: thousands of those votes still out there. So the margin

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Speaker 3: isn't wide at the moment in that division, as we know,

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Speaker 3: so of course all eyes on the division of Lingiari

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Speaker 3: at the moment, we certainly wouldn't be brave enough to

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Speaker 3: make any predictions about which way it's going to go.

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Speaker 3: And those boats need to come to us. We need

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Speaker 3: to put them through the count. We'll see whether the

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Speaker 3: margin stays the same, gets wider, or in fact comes

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Speaker 3: back to be a closer outcome. So there's plenty more

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Speaker 3: to go. There's still some interesting Lingiari, and it'll take

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Speaker 3: us certainly the next two weeks or so before we'll

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Speaker 3: know them more.

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Speaker 1: What happens if one of the seats is incredibly close,

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Speaker 1: do you have to sort of do a recount or

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Speaker 1: anything like that?

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Speaker 3: Well, we do, so the recount would be if a

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Speaker 3: division is within one hundred votes, so the top two

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Speaker 3: candidates within one hundred votes, that would constitute a recount,

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Speaker 3: an official recount. Then of course we go right back

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Speaker 3: to the very beginning of the count, every account that's

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Speaker 3: already been conducted, so the ordinary votes that were taken

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Speaker 3: and all of those declaration votes. So that's quite a

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Speaker 3: long process to go through the whole thing again, but

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Speaker 3: that's what's been required for a margin of less than

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Speaker 3: one hundred.

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Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like it's going to be a busy

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Speaker 1: day and indeed a busy couple of weeks for you guys.

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Speaker 1: And still so at this point in time, do we

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Speaker 1: have any idea if we had a good voter turnout

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Speaker 1: in some of those more remote areas or still too

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Speaker 1: early to tell.

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Speaker 3: Look, it is really early days. At the moment, we

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Speaker 3: have counted the votes from the remote area mobile polling

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Speaker 3: teams and those numbers are already up on the Virtual

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Speaker 3: Telly room, so I've got a good indication there. Of course,

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Speaker 3: turnout and participation are two different things. So for people

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Speaker 3: who voted in their own community, that would be part

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Speaker 3: of the turnout figure, but participation would also include people

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Speaker 3: that voted in another community or in a regional location,

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Speaker 3: so they might not have been in their community when

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Speaker 3: they voted. So we need to pull all that together

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Speaker 3: before we get a better idea of overall participation and

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Speaker 3: turn out.

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Speaker 2: Well, So, Jeff, busy day, mate.

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Speaker 1: What's the next step for you guys there at the

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Speaker 1: Electoral Commission today?

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Speaker 3: Look, I think it's as a matter of keep on

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Speaker 3: keeping on. It's all about Senate counting today, is so

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Speaker 3: the Senate counts are for the early voting centers. So

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Speaker 3: we've got some fifty thousand votes to count today in

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Speaker 3: the Senate space. No new House of Representative counts today.

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Speaker 3: That's from tomorrow and beyond as part of that declaration counting.

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Speaker 2: Well, Jeff Bloom, it's going to be a busy one.

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Speaker 1: Good luck to you and all the staff out there

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Speaker 1: at the Australian Electoral Commission here in Darwin.

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Speaker 2: Thank you very much for your time today.

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Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Katie, thank you