Analysis of voting in the 20 most marginal federal electorates has punched a hole in the theory there was a surge to the Liberal and Nationals parties on election day.
Australian Election Commission data in the 20 closest seats reveals that, in 17 of them, the Coalition received a better prepoll vote on a two-party-preferred basis than it received on election day. When combined with postal votes, this figure jumps to 19 seats.
There was widespread speculation throughout the election campaign that the record prepoll turnout of 4,271,276 ordinary votes would favour Labor because Australians were animated to throw out the government.
In fact, the Coalition fared better than Labor at prepoll voting in 13 of the 20 most marginal seats, with only Macquarie and Greenway in NSW, Lilley in Queensland, Cowan in Western Australia, Indi and Dunkley in Victoria, and Solomon in the Northern Territory favouring the ALP candidate.
When declaration of postal votes — early votes cast by electors outside their home division, in overseas diplomatic missions and at interstate voting centres — are added to the equation, there were 4,890,978 million voters. Prepoll votes made up 32.41 per cent of total votes cast at the election.