Deadline for postal votes passes

The deadline for postal votes being delivered to the Australian Electoral Commission for the May 18 federal election has passed.

Federal Labor MP Susan Templeman faces a few more sleepless nights wondering whether she has held on to her NSW seat of Macquarie, with counting not expected to resume until Monday.

Macquarie has proven the tightest contest among the 151 seats up for grabs in the House of Representatives at the May 18 federal election.

Ms Templeman presently sits 282 votes ahead of her Liberal rival Sarah Richards after preferences.

The deadline for final postal votes was midnight on Friday and remaining batches will be collated on Monday.

There was a similar story for the Tasmanian seat of Bass, the second tightest clash, where Liberal candidate Bridget Archer holds a 570 vote lead over Labor incumbent Ross Hart.

In total, the Liberal-National coalition is expected to govern with a slim 77-seat majority, compared to Labor with a likely 68 seats. There are six crossbenchers.

As of Friday, 34 seats had been official declared by the Australian Electoral Commission with another 12 expected on Monday.

The AEC cannot officially declare a result until it is mathematically impossible for the margin to be overtaken.

Vote counting also continues for Senate positions where 40 seats out of 76 are being contested.

The coalition is expected to have won 19 seats in the half-Senate election for a total of 35 seats, short of the 39 seats needed for a majority.

However, it will likely have to deal with a smaller crossbench of six senators to pass new laws, rather than the 10 of the last parliament.

Labor is expected to end up with 26 seats in total, while the Greens should have nine, assuming Larissa Waters retains her seat - the only position "in doubt" at this stage.


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Source: AAP


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