Boele vs Gisele: what happens next in Bradfield?

With every vote accounted for, Climate 200-backed candidate Nicolette Boele leads Liberal Gisele Kapterian by 39 votes in Bradfield. But the contest is far from over.

Climate 200-backed candidate Nicolette Boele leads by 39 votes in front of Gisele Kapterian from the Liberals.

A final result in the Sydney seat of Bradfield could still be weeks away, with the Australian Electoral Commission working through final preferences, before the strong likelihood of a recount.

With every vote accounted for, the AEC tally has Climate 200-backed candidate Nicolette Boele 39 votes in front of Gisele Kapterian from the Liberals.

Bradfield has always been held by the Liberal Party and several media outlets called the seat for Ms Kapterian last week.

AEC spokesperson Evan Ekin-Smith told The Daily Telegraph: “We have done a first preference count, and a two candidate-preferred count as well. The activity we have to go is what’s called a full distribution of preferences.”

“We do this for every House of Representatives seat. It’s a legal process we have to do under the Act. The distribution of preferences is likely to take most of the week.”

RECOUNT BECKONS

Once this occurs, a mandatory recount is conducted if the official margin is under 100 votes.

The recount will see AEC workers assisted by scrutineers from both Ms Boele and Ms Kapterian’s teams work through all 112,423 ballots cast in Bradfield again.

This will occur in a warehouse in Asquith, where the AEC has kept every vote in locked boxes. 6,417 votes in this seat, or 5.4 per cent of the total, won’t count as they have been declared informal.

Ms Boele won just 27 per cent of the primary vote but has been assisted by preferences which flowed from Labor and the Greens. She has also enjoyed an unsuspected increase in pre-poll and postal votes from her previous run against Paul Fletcher in 2022.

In a statement – Ms Boele said the result in Bradfield “will come down to just a few dozen votes and therefore I await the final declaration from the AEC. I would like to say thank you to all the volunteers as the count continues.”

The most recent AEC recount occurring was in the Queensland seat of Herbert in 2016 where Labor’s Cathy O’Toole was declared the final winner by just 37 votes.

Originally published as Boele vs Gisele: what happens next in Bradfield?