Election night
On election night, Presiding Officers (in their capacity as Assistant Returning Officers) will sort and count all ordinary votes taken during the polling period at their polling place.
They will forward to their district Returning Officer, the first preference count for each candidate contesting that Legislative Assembly seat, a two-candidate preferred count (i.e. a notional distribution), and finally for the Legislative Council the above-the-line first preference party or, group votes.
Returning Officers verify these numbers before sending them to the Commission and the progressively updated indicative results are published to the Commission’s website.