The NSW State Election three weeks ago was an incredibly tight race for all seats, with the result for the last seat in doubt staying in contention until a recount was ordered. That recount has now been completed, with the Liberal Party’s Jordan Lane declared the official new State MP for the seat.
This result comes after an incredibly tight race between the two major parties, with Mr. Lane’s vote margin to the Labor Party’s candidate being an astonishingly slim 0.1%. This slim margin was enough to trigger a recount, which took place over the weekend with the result now officially declared.
The recount, which began around 8:30 AM on Saturday, finished shortly after 5 PM that same evening, resulting in an increase of Mr Lane’s lead over his Labor counterpart. Initially, Mr Lane was just 50 votes ahead of Labor’s Lyndal Howison after the first count was done.
Following an 8.9 per cent swing to Labor on election night, Ms Howison requested a recount of the electorate’s 61,000 voters. On Thursday, NSW Electoral Commissioner John Schmidt agreed, deeming it appropriate to recount before the final results were declared due to the “very small margin”.
Ms Howison stated the 0.05 percent margin highlighted the significance of each vote in the democratic process.
“It is in the best interests of everyone that the result in Ryde be unambiguous and definite. I am immensely thankful and appreciative of all the uplifting and encouraging messages I have received in the course of these last few tumultuous weeks,” she said.
The NSW Electoral Commission announced the recount started on Saturday morning, with volunteers planned to keep tallying until 10:30 p.m.
After Mr Lane was elected mayor for the City of Ryde in 2022, he was preselected to contest the seat upon the retirement of senior Liberal cabinet minister Victor Dominello. In the previous count, Mr Lane held 25,425 votes or 50.05 per cent, while Ms Howison received 25,375 votes, a 49.95 per cent share.
