The independent Nicolette Boele has been declared the provisional winner of the seat of Bradfield on Sydney’s north shore after an agonising count in which she took a last-minute 40-vote lead over the Liberal candidate, Gisele Kapterian.
The final postal votes were processed in the former blue-ribbon Liberal seat on Monday and the Australian Electoral Commission announced in the afternoon that the indicative two-party-preferred margin was 40.
Its website later showed the margin as 41, and then 39.
The ABC’s chief elections analyst, Antony Green, declared Boele the provisional winner.
The commission will now carry out a full distribution of preferences, which it said could take the rest of the week. If the final margin remained under 100 after that process, it was AEC policy to conduct a formal recount, it said on X.
Scrutineers from each candidate’s team observe the tallying process to ensure preferences are distributed accurately, and are able to challenge decisions made by AEC staff.
Boele said on X on Monday afternoon it had been “a nail-biting couple of weeks” for both candidates and their teams.
“Despite the close count Gisele has encouraged civility throughout. I thank her for being a respectful and formidable candidate,” Boele wrote.
“No matter the final result, our community has sent a powerful message to the major parties: we are not the safe seat we used to be.”
Bradfield had been called for the Liberals last Monday by the ABC and Sky News before an apparent late surge in votes counted fell in Boele’s favour.
The second-time challenger Boele was backed by Simon Holmes à Court’s Climate 200. Holmes à Court wrote on X on Monday afternoon that it was still too early to “pop the champagne corks”.
Kapterian, a Salesforce executive and former Liberal staffer, was preselected to run for the Liberals in the seat in January after beating the prominent no campaigner in the voice referendum Warren Mundine. The seat was held by the shadow minister and moderate Liberal Paul Fletcher before he announced his retirement in late 2024.
The seat of Bradfield was established in 1949 and has only ever been held by Liberal MPs.
In the seat of Goldstein, Tim Wilson’s lead over the independent Zoe Daniel remained at 206 votes late on Monday, with the AEC’s site showing there were still 332 votes to be processed.
