“Over 118,000 ballots were cast by the people of Bradfield. The original count resulted in an eight vote lead my way,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
she said.<\/p>\n
“While the second count resulted in a 26 vote lead for Ms Boele. Today’s decision is taken to ensure the intentions of the voters of Bradfield are accurately reflected in the final count.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Gisele Kapterian says the decision is about ensuring the final outcome is a reflection of the “true wishes of the voters”. (Facebook: Gisele Kapterian)<\/p>\n
She added that this step would “provide collective confidence” and “remove any remaining doubts created by the two conflicting counts”.<\/p>\n
However, she also pointed out the move was not about casting doubt over the electoral system.<\/p>\n
“To be clear, there is no question regarding the integrity of our electoral system.<\/p>\n
“In fact, this process has only served to reaffirm my faith in Australia’s democratic institution.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I am grateful for the AEC’s [Australian Electoral Commission] tireless work in delivering the two very close counts.”<\/p>\n
Ms Boele was declared the winner on June 4, more than a month after voters went to the polls.<\/p>\n
The challenge will be taken to the Court of Disputed Returns. The Chief Justice of the High Court would nominate a High Court or Federal Court judge to sit as the Court of Disputed Returns.<\/p>\n
Weeks of uncertainty<\/p>\n
After weeks of uncertainty, Ms Boele beat Ms Kapterian by just 26 votes, with each woman leading in the electorate at different points.<\/p>\n
Ms Kapterian released a statement a short time after her opponent declared victory and promised to “carefully review the two counts”, leaving the door open for a legal challenge.<\/p>\n
The historically blue-ribbon seat was initially called for Ms Kapterian on May 12 by the ABC’s chief election analyst Antony Green, when she was ahead by about 200 votes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Nicolette Boele won the seat of Bradfield by just 26 votes. (Facebook: Nicolette Boele)<\/p>\n
But as the count continued, the number of votes between the pair shrank, and a week later Ms Boele took the lead as the provisional winner.<\/p>\n
Ms Boele remained ahead by 40 votes after the unofficial distribution of preferences, however as the counting entered its final stages, Ms Kapterien pulled ahead once more by eight ballots.<\/p>\n
Under the Australian Electoral Commission\u2019s policy, a recount was ordered, as is the case in all contests won by fewer than 100 votes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an interview with ABC’s Afternoon Briefing in June, Ms Kapterian said she was not rushing into a legal contest.<\/p>\n
“It’s the two different outcomes that we’re having look at now, taking a moment to breathe, taking advice \u2026 to really understand where the numbers lie and what might lie ahead,” Ms Kapterian said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NSW Liberal Party will challenge the federal election result in the Sydney seat of Bradfield after losing…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":65307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[46462,4740,46468,46464,46458,46466,46457,46459,21190,46467,46461,15783,17127,50,46460,9111,46463,333,46465],"class_list":{"0":"post-65306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-aec","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australian-electoral-commission","11":"tag-blue-ribbon","12":"tag-bradfield","13":"tag-court-of-disputed-returns","14":"tag-federal-election","15":"tag-gisele-kapterian","16":"tag-legal-action","17":"tag-legal-challenege","18":"tag-legal-challenge","19":"tag-liberal","20":"tag-liberal-party","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-nicolette-boele","23":"tag-voter","24":"tag-votes","25":"tag-voting","26":"tag-who-won-bradfield"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114852534999660278","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}