00:01The Electoral Commission says it's found ballots including 77 unopened, absent, ordinary ballot
00:08papers, as well as four declaration papers, which had been returned to the neighbouring
00:13seat of Stuart.
00:14Now, that's prompted the Electoral Commission to order a recount to take place tomorrow
00:19in the seat of Narunga, which encompasses South Australia's entire York Peninsula.
00:24Following the March 21 state election, a razor-thin margin in voting forced a recount
00:29to take place in Narunga then.
00:32And earlier this month, the Electoral Commission declared that One Nation's Chantel Thomas
00:37had won the seat over the Liberal candidate Tanya Stock by a margin of just 58 votes, which
00:43handed One Nation its fourth seat in SA's lower house.
00:47Now, the Acting Electoral Commissioner, Leah MacLea, says she'll be overseeing this subsequent
00:52recount when it gets underway tomorrow.
00:55Take a listen.
00:55Let me be clear.
00:57The result has already been declared.
01:00The purpose of the count is for the Commission to determine whether the result would have
01:04differed had those ballots been included in the initial count and subsequent recount.
01:11Leah MacLea also said that she'd contacted all candidates to notify them of this recount.
01:16However, the Liberal candidate Tanya Stock said that she hadn't been contacted by EXA or made
01:21aware of its statement when she was approached by the ABC a short time ago.
01:26Now, with just 81 votes on the line, it seems unlikely that the result in Narunga will change.
01:31However, EXA says that this recount is being conducted to ensure the integrity of the result and says
01:37if that was to change, it would then seek legal advice.
01:40The Electoral Commission has faced a bit of criticism into how the March 21 poll was run,
01:46including issues surrounding understaffing as well as delays caused by difficulties logging
01:51into the electronic electoral roll system.
01:54EXA says it's now going to be investigating the cause of this error that led to these extra
01:59votes not being counted and says it also anticipates that an independent external review into how
02:05the state election was run will also be carried out.
02:10it seems like means to ensure that it has been noted.
02:10tool that the statewide dioceseetzted decision-based legislation could Shane
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