A COUNTBACK will be held to find a replacement for Wodonga councillor Tim Quilty if he is elected to the Victorian parliament.
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The Liberal Democrat is sitting third out of five candidates predicted by the ABC to enter the Upper House.
A final result for the Legislative Council region of Northern Victoria may not be known until the second week of December.
“I’m reasonably confident,” Mr Quilty said of his chances of success.
“I think it’s probably going to happen, but I don’t want to run around saying ‘I’ve won’, because there’s a chance I couldn’t.”
Under election rules, Cr Quilty would become disqualified as a councillor as soon as he became an MP.
The VEC would then conduct a countback among unsuccessful candidates in the 2016 council election.
That is unlikely to occur before January.
Likely contenders based on their vote counts include former Westmont Aged Care boss Ray Snell, past chamber of commerce chief Alison Reed and ex-boutique owner Dawn George.
Meanwhile, member for Indi Cathy McGowan has compared the tight race for the seat of Benambra between independent Jacqui Hawkins and Liberal incumbent Bill Tilley to her narrow win in the 2013 federal election.
“I wish her well,” Ms McGowan said of Ms Hawkins who she endorsed before the election.
“It might just be 200 votes, in my case it was 439 votes and I thank every single one of those people who voted for me, but I think time will tell.
“I think it’s a good outcome, having competitive seats makes for much better politics.”
Ms McGowan has been swapping text messages with Ms Hawkins on a regular basis since Saturday’s election.
Returning officer Trevor Deacon said a preference flow to decide the winner will start on Tuesday after being first tipped for Monday.
Provisional votes should be added on Monday.
According to the ABC, Mr Tilley has a 226-vote lead over Ms Hawkins on a two-candidate preferred basis.
