ONLY around 4,000 first preference votes remain to be counted for the ACT election, but the final result will not be determined until Saturday at the earliest, says ACT Electoral Commissioner Phil Green.

Green says counting the rest of the votes will take until the end of the week due to the “painstaking process” of checking names against the electoral roll.

Green added that some media reports have indicated that more than 30,000 votes remain to be counted, but this is “incorrect.”

“While the difference between the number of votes counted to date and the number of electors on the ACT electoral roll is around 30,000, not all electors on the roll can be expected to vote,” he says.

“In a typical ACT election, only 90 per cent of enrolled electors turnout to vote.  Many of those who do not vote will have a valid and sufficient reason for failing to vote – for example, if they are ill or overseas.”

No additional first preference votes will be counted today.

Around 2,500 votes are expected to be counted tomorrow, including postal votes and votes cast in small numbers at polling places for particular electorates.

Today, Elections staff are continuing the detailed process of electronically scanning and verifying every preference written on every paper ballot cast in the election.

Every evening this week, Elections ACT intends to post an interim distribution of preferences on its website.

These figures will consist of ballot papers counted for whole polling places to ensure they do not skew the results posted.

But users of these results are cautioned that they only represent a sample of preferences, and the final outcome cannot be determined until all of the preferences are counted.

“As postal votes can be received up until Friday 26 October, the final result cannot be determined until all of these votes have been processed and included in the count.

“This cannot occur until Saturday 27 October at the earliest,” Green says.