When Kate Carnell leaves the Assembly, her vacancy will be filled – not by by-election – but by a count-back of the 25,379 ballot papers for voters who marked Carnell 1.
Only those who stood in the 1998 election are eligible to stand for the vacancy. Presumably, the Liberals’ Jacqui Burke would be a candidate. She was the last Liberal candidate to be excluded in 1998.
Because Mrs Carnell got more than a quota, all of her 23,379 physically ballot papers were distributed according to preferences and are now scattered among nine bundles totalling 75,667 ballot papers in electoral office. So the count process will take a long time.
In effect Mrs Carnell’s 23,379 ballots are extracted and treated as ballots in an election for a House of Representatives seat with the unsuccessful 1998 candidates as candidates this time (if they so elect). The count proceeds by distributing the preferences past 1998 successful candidates to the first available 2000 candidate. So a ballot marked Carnell 1, Humphries 2, Cornwell 3, Burke 4 would be treated as a first preference for Burke.
If no-one gets a majority initially, the least successful candidate is eliminated and his or her preferences are distributed and so on until someone gets a majority of 11,690 votes (half of 23,379).
Looking at the 1998 count, 12,000 of Mrs Carnell’s 16,000 over-quota stayed with Liberal candidates. And the spill from there beyond Mr Humphries stayed more than 85 per cent with the Liberals.
So if Jacqui Burke stands she will inevitably get the seat. If she does not, it will go to whichever of the other Liberals stand.