150-plus steps to an official result

Democracy is as easy as a tick in a box, right?

Wrong. The process between casting your vote and a final result involves more than 150 steps.

And that excludes complications such as a judicial recount or an electoral petition.

By the time voters started filing into the booths at 9 am on election day, staff had been there for an hour, setting up and making sure those present had signed declarations promising to maintain the secrecy of the ballot.

At 7 pm, the doors were closed and the task of sorting and counting began.

This year, staff were instructed to empty the ballot boxes and divide the papers into the following piles: non-split votes (where the candidate and party votes matched), split votes and informal votes (where the intention was unclear) and the two referendums.

Emptying the boxes alone took more than an hour in most booths. Non-split votes were sorted into piles for each of the five main parties and one for the others, and counted.

Split and informal votes were then counted, and referendum papers were dealt with similarly.

During this process, at least three forms were filled in - the certificate, accounting and results sheets.

Each polling place phoned its results to the electorate returning officer, who transmitted the results to the Election Night Results Centre, which fed them to the media and the election Website.

In the next 10 days, returning officers sent and received special votes, scrutinised the roll and prepared for the official count.

The official count and the counting of special votes were required to be completed by Thursday night - a deadline some electorates barely made.