Election 2016: Count looms as one of the most engrossing in living memory

• Federal election 2016: Full coverage
• Poll shock: Coalition faces defeat
• Voters undecided with just hours to go
• It's 50-50, so what was the point of it all?

Australians overwhelmingly expect Malcolm Turnbull to prevail in Saturday's election, but appear determined to give him a nervous night and an unconvincing victory.

The stunning disconnect between expectation and intention is the most remarkable feature of the final Fairfax Ipsos Election Poll: a narrow majority of voters intend to elect a Shorten government, but just 17 per cent expect this to happen.

No wonder Turnbull used his final set-piece performance of the campaign to warn that a vote for anyone but Coalition candidates in the 20 key battleground seats could produce "the chaos of a hung parliament".

No wonder Bill Shorten is dismissing questions about his future predicated on a Labor loss as "silly" and exuding confidence that victory is within his grasp.

The Turnbull government will windback superannuation concessions for high-income earners.Credit: Andrew Meares

The clear impression is that Turnbull has finished this marathon the stronger and there is some evidence in this poll to support it: his approval rating is slightly up and so is Shorten's disapproval rating.

But the Prime Minister's net approval is what it was before he called the election (it reached its nadir mid-campaign) and so is the two-party vote. The only differences are that the percentage of voters who say they are strongly committed to their intended vote is up to 80 per cent (from 74 per cent a month ago) and expectation of a Coalition win is stronger.

The clear conclusion is that the worst kind of Turnbull victory remains a distinct possibility: a wafer-thin majority in the lower house and a hostile Senate.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten during a street walk in Queensland on Thursday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Remember, the whole pretext for this early double dissolution election was to secure the numbers in a joint siting for restore a "cop on the beat" on building sites. That won't happen if these numbers reflect the election result.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday.Credit: Andrew Meares

Now, after a campaign utterly devoid of surprises and even memorable moments, comes a count that looms as one of the most engrossing in living memory.

Whether Turnbull secures a solid majority or we have a hung Parliament that could see Shorten elected will hinge on the personal appeal of candidates, the marginal seat campaigning of the major parties and how preferences flow in fewer than 30 seats.

Pollster John Stirton, who rated the probability of an Abbott win at 95 per cent in 2013, puts the probability of a Turnbull win at 66 per cent on Saturday.

In Turnbull's favour are three factors: an average of all the polls still puts the Coalition just in front; the (less reliable) published polling in the marginals also has the Coalition just in front; and the historical truth that government's tend to do better at holding their marginal seats than oppositions do at seizing them.

The incumbent will also be assisted by fall-out from the Andrews' government abysmal handling of the CFA dispute in Victoria, which could see CFA members out in force at polling booths in seats such as Corangamite.

The biggest unknown is how the Nick Xenophon Team will perform in lower house seats in South Australia.This could be the difference between a clear Turnbull majority, if NXT fails to take seats from the Coalition, and the result few in the electorate, let alone the commentariat, have seriously contemplated.

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