THERE'S only hours to go until Election Day 2015 dawns across the Monaro, but around half the electorate has already voted.
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Numbers through the door have at the Monaro Returning Officers' Office on Crawford Street have been building steadily over the last two weeks as early bird Queanbeyan residents get their votes in prior to polling day.
Monaro Returning Officer Brian Eagles said the NSW Electoral Commission was expecting around 11,300 pre-poll votes to be lodged across the Monaro this election, out of a projected total of just over 29,000 votes in the entire seat. And that doesn't include all the online votes coming in under the electoral commission's new iVote system.
Mr Eagles is heading a team that will swell to around 200 people tomorrow, staffing 27 polling booths across the Monaro, and then counting up the votes when polls close at 6pm.
"The intensity is definitely rising in the build up to D-Day, or E-Day if you like," he said. "But I'm loving it- it's great people [in the team], and a lot of fun."
As for the much-awaited result itself, Mr Eagles said staff would expect to have their first counts completed prior to 11pm on Saturday night
"We're not allowed to open any ballot box from a pre-poll perspective until 6pm.
"Then polling booths do their own legislative assembly count first at their booth, then their two candidate preferred count, and then they do the legislative council first preference count. And it's expected that all the polling centres will have completed those three counts on Saturday night," he said.
It's Mr Eagles first time as returning officer, and he said he applied for the job earlier this year after hearing a radio advertisement seeking senior election officials. He told The Queanbeyan Age he was enjoying the challenge.
"I went home and filled out the selection criteria, and a few months later, I was interviewed, and for my sins I won the job," he said.
"I'm retired now, so it was just something different and a new challenge for a couple of months. It's been great to meet local people, and despite it being a paid position, it's a great community position as well."
- For more voting information this election, visit www.elections.nsw.gov.au.