Third vote count triggered in South Australian seat after extra ballots discovered

Chantelle Thomas claimed the Yorke Peninsula seat two weeks ago by a razor-thin margin of just 58 votes.

The March 21 vote was so close that a recount of the electorate was ordered to ensure no mistakes had been made.

But the South Australian Electoral Commission (ECSA) today ordered a second recount of votes after 81 unopened ballots were found in the neighboring Stuart district.

The unopened batch of votes was collected at the Port Pirie early voting center on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Kyam Maher said.

The commission said Acting Commissioner Leah McLay has contacted all candidates to inform them of the third count.

“Following the discovery of uncounted votes, I have secured the unopened ballots and ordered a further count for Narungga district,” McLay said.

“The Commission will support any independent external review of the 2026 state election and the South Australian First Nations Voice to Parliament election.”

The recount will take place tomorrow, attended by auditors and McLay himself.

Thomas called the news of the recount “very disappointing for my community in Narungga.”

“We are forced to wait again to see who will be Narungga’s representative in parliament,” she said.

“Let’s be clear: this raises serious questions about the integrity of the South Australian election, whether the Electoral Commission was fully prepared for it, and how Labor’s new electoral laws – passed with Liberal support – affected the Electoral Commission’s preparations.

“Like everyone else, I will have to wait for the count on Friday. After that I am sure there will be more to say about it.”

The government has ordered an independent investigation into the election, Maher said

“Elections are incredibly complex things to undertake. There are thousands of employees, hundreds of voting booths and more than a million votes to count,” Maher said.

“We are now finalizing the mandate and, in addition, an independent investigation into how the elections went and what the voters experienced.”

Narungga was the last House of Commons seat convened at the election, giving Pauline Hanson’s Conservative Party the fourth seat in Parliament.

Thomas defeated Yorke Peninsula Local and Liberal candidate Tania Stock to claim the seat.

The South Australian Liberal Party was reduced to five seats in the Labor Party’s landslide victory on election night.

SA Liberal Party leader Ashton Hurn called the vote counting tampering “hugely concerning” and said the ECSA “has a lot of explaining to do”.

“There have been a series of mistakes made by the Electoral Commission and I think we need to get to the bottom of how this happened because that means we can ensure this doesn’t happen again in the future,” she said.

“If one party of votes can essentially disappear into thin air and reappear four weeks later, that raises questions about other seats.”

NEVER MISS A STORY: Be the first to receive your latest news and exclusive stories by following us on all platforms.