9 March
Election night at the WAEC Count Centre
Counting will commence at 6pm on Saturday, 11 March 2017 at the WAEC Count Centre for the Legislative Assembly only. The Legislative Council count will commence at the Count Centre at around 12.30pm on Sunday, 12 March 2017.
The ballot papers that will be included in the count on election night will be from all early votes, including early voting centres and postal votes. The ballot papers from early voting centres that will be included in the count are those from the locations that have been able to return their election material to the Count Centre before 6pm on Saturday, 11 March 2017. Ballot papers, particularly from overseas and interstate early voting centres, will be received within the week following the election and included in the ongoing count.
The Count Centre will have 45 counting tables. There will be one district per count table. Once the count for one district has been completed, the next district will be counted.
The counting on election night at the WAEC Count Centre is expected to go to around 11pm on election night.
Counting votes in polling places
In polling places, counting of primary votes for the relevant Legislative Assembly will commence at 6pm, followed by a Two Candidate Preferred (TCP), or ‘notional’ count, of Legislative Assembly preferences. Legislative Council votes will be counted last but only ‘above the line votes’ will be counted. Counting of ‘below the line’ votes will be undertaken at the WAEC Count Centre commencing on Monday, 13 March 2017.
iVote Decryption Ceremony
iVote has proved to be very popular with eligible electors, with the Commission having received over 1,500 registrations as at noon today, Thursday 9 March 2017.
After polling closes on Saturday evening, there will be an iVote Decryption Ceremony held at the Northbridge Count Centre on Sunday morning at 11.00am.
The Decryption Ceremony involves the votes in the two virtual ballot boxes being decrypted, compared and then opened in the presence of the Comparator, Independent Auditor and scrutineers. Vote records are then printed, batched and reconciled before being moved to the declaration vote processing and counting areas.
Interested parties are asked to nominate a scrutineer to attend the Decryption Ceremony on the Sunday morning. If interested in scrutineering this event, it would be appreciated if you could advise the Electoral Liaison Officer who your party’s scrutineer will be by 6.00 pm Saturday, 11 March 2017 via email to fad@waec.wa.gov.au.
How-to-vote material at Early Voting Centres
How-to-vote material that has been left at Early Voting Centres will be disposed of by the Electoral Commission after 6pm on Friday, 10 March 2017. If you would like to collect the material to use on polling day, please do so before the close of early voting.