{"id":659442,"date":"2026-05-09T08:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T08:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/659442\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T08:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T08:21:09","slug":"polls-closed-one-nation-aim-to-snatch-former-liberal-party-leader-sussan-leys-seat-in-nsw-riverina-region-independent-michelle-millthorpe-set-to-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/659442\/","title":{"rendered":"Polls closed; One Nation aim to snatch former Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley\u2019s seat in NSW Riverina region; independent Michelle Millthorpe set to fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Australian Electoral Commission is expecting a higher than average turnout at today\u2019s byelection, commission spokesman Evan Ekin-Smyth has said, as he warned results may be slowed down because of the large pool of candidates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe latest numbers that I\u2019ve seen probably suggest that we\u2019re going to end up above recent byelections like Cook and Aston and Dunkley. Somewhere, probably in the 85 to 90 per cent range in terms of final turnout, which is pretty good, but below the national turnout rate at the last election,\u201d Ekin-Smyth told Sky News this evening.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Volunteers at a polling place in Albury today. \" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/059fd5c8ad60775cacf351de6fab52c4a0c82cfd.jpeg\"  class=\"sc-d34e428-1 ldCIuB\"\/>Volunteers at a polling place in Albury today. Jason Robins<\/p>\n<p>Ekin-Smyth urged patience as the AEC sifts through a larger pool of candidates than the last election, and changes to preference flows from what the electorate has previously seen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFarrer in the 2025 federal election, last year, had nine candidates, and the average at the last federal election was between seven and eight per seat, and 12 clearly is more than that,\u201d Ekin-Smyth said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we\u2019re counting the votes, there could be a lot of candidate appointed scrutineers at our count centres and polling places, for instance, that might slow things down a little bit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA hotly contested vote, as well, could mean that we obviously need to be patient for a result, and our motto is \u2018always right, not rushed\u2019. So we\u2019ll see what happens tonight. But we urge people to be patient with us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian Electoral Commission is expecting a higher than average turnout at today\u2019s byelection, commission spokesman Evan Ekin-Smyth&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-659442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}