Mulka count recording error - 2020 Territory Election

During the re-check of votes cast in the 2020 Territory Election late yesterday afternoon, two count recording errors were discovered in the division of Mulka.

Count figures telephoned through to the NTEC from the voting centre in Nhulunbuy on Saturday night were incorrect.

The recording errors were discovered part-way through yesterday afternoon’s recheck of the division after the ballots had been transferred to the Darwin Scrutiny Centre.

There were no scrutineers from either party at the Darwin Scrutiny Centre at the time, therefore the re-check was suspended.

Electoral Commissioner Iain Loganathan spoke to representatives from both candidates and the decision was made to conduct a full re-check of the division of Mulka at 9am this morning with scrutineers present.

The errors were made when recording result sheets in Nhulunbuy.

The number of votes recorded on two results sheets were correct, but were recorded against the wrong candidates.

The vote count provided to the NTEC on Saturday night for Mobile Team 1 was 956 votes to Candidate Yingiya Mark Guyula and 424 for Candidate Lynne Walker.

The count should have been 424 votes to Candidate Yingiya Mark Guyula and 956 for Candidate Lynne Walker.

The second vote count provided to the NTEC on Saturday night for the Nhulunbuy Early Voting Centre was 502 votes to Candidate Yingiya Mark Guyula and 928 for Candidate Lynne Walker.

The count should have been 928 votes to Candidate Yingiya Mark Guyula and 502 for Candidate Lynne Walker. Mr Loganathan said that while the errors were unfortunate, the purpose of conducting re-checks is to identify issues such as these.

"This is why the NTEC continually reinforces that the Saturday night count is an indicative count only," Mr Loganathan said. "The re-check of all divisions is an essential, best-practice process that is undertaken by every electoral commission in the country."

The current vote margin in the division of Mulka is 302, with declaration votes, further absent votes and postal votes received before the deadline at 12 noon on 4 September still to be counted. The updated results following this morning's re-check for the division of Mulka are now available on the NTEC website.