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Victorian election count ongoing as results still being finalised in Pakenham, Northcote, Preston, Hastings, Mornington and Bass

Counting continues across Victoria to determine the winners of six lower house seats, with margins of just a few hundred votes separating some candidates.

The lower house seats of Pakenham, Northcote, Preston, Hastings, Mornington and Bass are still to be called.

Labor is contesting five of those seats, while the Liberals are contesting four. Independent candidates are contesting two seats, and the Greens are hoping for a late swing to win the seat of Northcote.

Meanwhile, in the upper house, One Nation candidate Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell looked like she would grab a spot in northern Victoria, after the party failed to gain a seat at the last election.

The race for the leadership of the Victorian Liberal Party is now between two candidates, after Polwarth MP Richard Riordan said on Thursday he was no longer running.

He announced he would instead stand for the deputy leader role and support Berwick MP Brad Battin's candidacy for the top job.

Warrandyte MP Ryan Smith dropped out of the race on Wednesday, saying he would back Mr Battin.

Mr Battin was running against John Pesutto, whose seat of Hawthorn was called on Wednesday after a right race.

Preferences to be distributed next week

The Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) has warned it will not conduct preference distributions — a crucial step in close contests — until next Tuesday, December 6.

"This is because all eligible votes must be admitted to the count first, and rechecked," it said in a statement.

The commission is still receiving postal votes submitted before the close of voting, which have until December 2 to arrive.

Pakenham has played host to one of the tightest contests, with Liberal candidate David Farrelly ahead of Labor's Emma Vulin by just five votes as of Tuesday morning.

The seat was previously held by the ALP by a 2.2 per cent margin.

Leading up to the election, the Greens had Northcote in its sights, but on Thursday Labor's Kat Theophanous remained ahead of Greens candidate, Campbell Gome.

Mr Gome initially pulled ahead, but pre-poll and postal votes later favoured Ms Theophanous.

In Preston, a two-horse race has emerged between Labor's Nathan Lambert and independent Gaetano Greco.

The VEC was still counting Mr Lambert's primary vote against that of Greens candidate Patchouli Paterson.

Hastings was another seat in Labor's sights, with the ALP's celebrity candidate Paul Mercurio, who starred in in the film Strictly Ballroom, just ahead of Liberal Briony Hutton.

Like some other close contests, it appeared Mr Mercurio had won the seat on election night, but pre-poll and postal votes tightened the race substantially.

In the district of Mornington, Liberal candidate Chris Crewther was ahead of teal independent Kate Lardner.

Further east, Labor was battling to hold on in the notionally Liberal seat of Bass in another tight contest, which saw incumbent Jordan Crugnale lead Liberal challenger Aaron Brown by 233 votes on Thursday morning.

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