As the counting of votes gets closer to finalising the election result, those vying for the Tasmanian seats still in play may have to keep the celebratory drinks in the fridge for a little while longer.
The election experts might have Bass in Liberal hands, but Labor challenger Ross Hart hasn't called Bridget Archer to concede.
"Not as yet, but I'll do that… if not today, that will be in the near future," Mr Hart told reporters in Launceston yesterday.
At last check, Ms Archer held a lead of around 1,200 votes in Bass with just short of 74 per cent of the vote counted.
In such a narrow race, it's not unusual for candidates to want to wait for postal votes to come in before conceding defeat.
However, election analyst Kevin Bonham has seen enough.
The other Tasmanian seat still considered 'in-doubt' by the ABC is Lyons.
At the time of writing, incumbent Brian Mitchell holds an 833-vote lead over Liberal challenger Susie Bower.
Mr Mitchell previously held the seat with a 5.2 per cent margin, but that has been whittled away thanks to a 4.5 per cent swing to the Liberals after preferences.
Professor Bonham believes those figures are slightly misleading.
Professor Bonham said polling booth errors are relatively rare, but can occur as a result of someone simply putting figures into the wrong spreadsheet column.
"Every single booth will be re-checked, and in the process of re-checking every single booth they will find any of these issues and correct them.
Thousands of postals still to be counted
COVID-19 has dramatically increased the number of postal votes in play during this year's election, due to voters isolating or being unwilling to gather at polling places.
In Lyons alone, nearly 15,000 postal-vote applications were received by the Australian Electoral Commission.
Professor Bonham said postal votes have favoured the Coalition at previous elections, but the very different make-up of the people applying for postal voting at this election, meant the trend is likely to be less severe.
"In Lyons the postal votes tend to break relatively weakly, not like some seats where there tends to be a big advantage for the Coalition.
How long until we have a result?
Those keeping an eager eye on the results in Bass and Lyons will have noticed the figures barely moved yesterday.
The Australian Electoral Commission told the ABC that's due to a focus on the Senate for much of the day, with a lot of 2,000 Lyons postal votes processed late in the afternoon.
The AEC says another two lots of postal votes — one each in Bass and Lyons — will undergo an initial count this morning, and those numbers should start to move again today.
While the AEC has to wait nearly two weeks for postal votes to come in, the result should become clear long before then.
The Senate result is normally the one to drag out over many days, even weeks, but not this time around.
Professor Bonham said "early on counting night" it looked as though the Jacqui Lambie Network candidate Tammy Tyrrell would be successful in taking a seat off the Liberals.
