WHAT WAS CLAIMED
The AEC said 97.7 per cent of Dickson votes had been counted by May 5, 2025.
OUR VERDICT
False. The figure is the counted ballot papers that had been added to the two-candidate preferred count.
AAP FACTCHECK - The Australian Electoral Commission did not report that 97.7 per cent of the votes had been counted in outgoing opposition leader Peter Dutton's seat by May 5, 2025, despite online claims about supposed election irregularities.
The AEC says the 97.7 figure refers to neither the overall count nor the turnout in the Dickson electorate, but instead refers to the proportion of counted ballot papers that had also been added to the two-candidate preferred (TCP) count.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post after the May 3 election, in which Labor's Ali France ousted Mr Dutton from the outer Brisbane seat he held for 24 years.
"As example of Missing votes. ?? Here is Peter Duttons seat of Dickson. Australian Electoral Commission are saying 97.7% of votes are counted," the post's caption reads.
"That should be 116,654 votes counted of 119,401 of enrolled voters.. Not 88,382. !!!
"Are we to believe that 28,272 enrolled voters or 23.6% of Peter Duttons electorate didn't vote.??"
The same user also made a similar claim in a Facebook post about Energy Minister Chris Bowen's Sydney seat of McMahon.
The AEC confirmed it did not report 97.7 per cent of ballots had been counted in Dickson by May 5.
"This is another disappointing example of a social media user misunderstanding data from the AEC's virtual Tally Room and publishing something inflammatory rather than checking their understanding with the AEC," a spokesperson told AAP FactCheck.
The election watchdog said its Tally Room page for Dickson very clearly reported "97.70 per cent of the ballot papers counted thus far have also had a TCP count undertaken".
The TCP count is the process by which AEC scrutineers select the two leading candidates for a seat, then add ballot papers to a pile according to which of those two is preferenced higher.
The AEC spokesperson said the 97.7 per cent figure has absolutely nothing to do with voter turnout, which cannot be calculated until after every postal vote is returned and counted.
"Instead, it's a percentage of the ballot papers we've counted so far that we've been able to add to the two candidate preferred count," they said.
The Facebook post also falsely claimed that 28,272 ballots from the electorate were missing.
That figure appears to be based on calculating 97.7 per cent of the 119,401 total eligible voters in the Dickson - 116,654 - then subtracting from it the 88,382 formal and informal first preference votes counted at the time.
However, when the post was made, the AEC had only counted 74 per cent of the total votes in the seat.
Thousands of votes - mostly declaration votes, which include absentee, provisional, pre-poll and postal ballots - were yet to be counted.
The AEC website explains that such votes take longer to count as postal voters have 13 days after the election date to return their completed ballots.
AAP FactCheck is an accredited member of the International Fact-Checking Network. To keep up with our latest fact checks, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, BlueSky, TikTok and YouTube.
