Democracy was spread in small piles on tables throughout the counting room. They were like piles of exam papers at the end of school term. Careers in the hands of the markers. Usually the failed students return to school to repeat, but in this exam things are different. The students who pass, return to school _ the Legislative Assembly _ with joy. At the counting room yesterday exam papers were being sorted into merit order.
Animated election commission staff flicked papers like old-time bank staff counted notes while less animated but more mentally agitated scrutineers attempt to glean how their candidate is doing. Candidates are not allowed in the counting room _ perhaps they will make nuisances of themselves. So their scrutineers _ usually staffers or patient spouses _ with mobile phones relay the news. With the Hare-Clark system there are more permutations than Tattslotto. “”If Evans is excluded before Main and her preferences flow through the third Green and divide, say, 60-40 your way . . . .” The conversation trails away. At the other end of phone a career is in the balance.
The election “”experts” also hang about. Some have wangled their way to be official candidates’ scrutineers so they can watch fascinated by possibilities, what-ifs, if-onlys and how the predictions of a week ago had come true. Ironically, in the complications of Hare-Clark where nothing seemed beyond possibility, Annette Ellis, the sitting Labor MLA who stood in Brindabella, saw defeat on Saturday night and in a dignified way packed up her office, in the Assembly building over the road from the counting room, well before the count was over. Outside her office stood three empty big bins _ a reminder of the legacy of the defeated David Lamont. Yet, even at the death last night, some were saying she could still pip Bill Wood at the post. If anyone had cause to hover with scruniteers and straw-clutching hope she had. Yet in the end despite a week of speculation and hypothesising, the result was as expected and predicted by most. At 11pm last night it was finished. The 17 candidates determined. The electoral commission staff left neat piles of papers _ there may be a recount in the next three years if an MLA retires or dies. The scrutineers left pizza packets over the tables. “”You have all earned another paddle pop,” commissioner Phil Green said, apparently breaking a Hare-Clark record for determining a count. Over the road the school building was desolate. In a fortnight the new term will start with much jockeying to see who will be head prefect.