LIBERAL candidate and highly fancied successor to Zed Seselja, Val Jeffery, fell only nine votes short of securing the Brindabella seat.

The ACT Electoral Commission’s scrutiny sheet showed Jeffrey had led fellow Liberal candidate Nicole Lawder through the seven-stage count back, as the computer, in a matter of minutes, distributed preferences from Seselja and, subsequently, via the other candidates.

Jeffery led the first six stages of the count back to emerge with 4758 to Lawder’s 4736. But then came the preference distribution from failed Green candidate and former MLA Amanda Bresnan.

It was here, on the seventh distribution, that Bresnan’s preferences favoured Lawder 81 votes to 51, giving her 4817 to Jeffreys’ 4809.

Ms Lawder is the CEO of not-for-profit organisation Homelessness Australia.

She will be formally declared elected on Wednesday to replace former Liberals leader Zed Seselja, who left the Assembly this month after winning a pre-selection battle for the top Liberal Senate spot.

A count back of ballot papers in the electorate of Brindabella, which elected Mr Seselja, was used to determine the replacement. Ms Lawder will be sworn in when the Assembly sits in August.

The computer count, which started shortly after 12.30 pm today, was completed in a few minutes. By contrast, the last time a manual hand count was undertaken to fill the casual vacancy in the Assembly – the 2001 recount following the resignation of Kate Carnell – the count took two days.