Australia: Long days ahead when every vote counts

Long days ahead when every vote counts:

IN AN era of instant online gratification, it is tempting to ask ''Why are we waiting?'' for the votes to be counted from Saturday's election. ...

... The simple answer is because the Commonwealth Electoral Act requires every House of Representatives vote to be counted manually and allows voters who can't make it to a polling place on election day to cast ''declaration votes''.

According to the Australian Electoral Commission's spokesman, Phil Diak, there have been about 13 million votes cast in this election and roughly 2 million of these are so-called ''declaration'' votes. --->>>