Australian election rocked by scandal after missing ballot papers are found at electoral worker's home

About 2,000 missing ballot papers that went missing connected election night person been recovered successful the location of a impermanent Australian Electoral Commission worker.

The AEC revealed that a idiosyncratic collected 1,866 House of Representatives votes successful a unafraid instrumentality from a Hurstville polling booth connected May 3 but did not present it to the cardinal counting facility.

Because the votes had already been counted, the incidental did not interaction the effect successful the NSW spot of Barton.

'Ballot papers were securely packaged successful the beingness of scrutineers with an authorised transport serviceman collecting 2 ballot insubstantial transport containers for transportation to a cardinal counting centre to await further processing,' an AEC spokesperson said successful a statement.

'The unit subordinate liable erroneously returned 1 little instrumentality than was expected.'

AEC officials lone noticed the ballots were missing past week.

'The AEC's tracking processes for ballot insubstantial transport containers identified that 1 of the 2 transport containers for the Hurstville polling spot was not returned to the cardinal counting centre connected predetermination nighttime arsenic it should person been,' the spokesperson said.

'This contented relates to a azygous transport instrumentality that remained sealed and intact and has not affected the election.

'The uniquely coded information seals were not broken, and the AEC's purpose-built ballot insubstantial transport instrumentality was intact.

'All ballot papers are accounted for.

'The AEC takes ballot insubstantial handling highly seriously.'

The Barton spot was won by Labor’s Ash Ambihaipahar, who secured implicit 60 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote, beating Liberal campaigner Fiona Douskou.