I have already voted. Can you guess how I filled in my House of Representatives ballot paper ?

There are 40,320 ways to arrange the numbers 1 to 8 in a line

Have I issued enough clues for you to reduce the odds so you guess correctly?

Here are the candidates in my electorate in drawn ballot order.

I filled in every square and did not duplicate any digit.

8! = 8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 = 40,320 ways to arrange the numbers 1 to 8 in a line.

You can appreciate that on Saturday night, 3 May 2025, there should be 9 piles of green paper on each table in each of my electorates multiple voting locations once the scrutineers witness the unsealing of the boxes.

There might be more piles if ballot papers have been put in the wrong box due to the voter not following instructions in booths where more than one electorate was being handled. These are usually quickly spotted and moved to another table.

In addition to one pile for each candidate, there will be a pile of informal votes including blank papers.

I expect informal votes will exceed some for minor parties, but hope to be wrong.

In most counting centres, scrutineers for each candidate are allowed to observe every paper as it is placed in a pile and they tally when they see their person ahead of the major competitor. Humans are very good at this. They phone in what they see to the candidates so they know before the Australian Electoral Commission tells the media.

The week after the election, each paper is scanned and preferences are tallied on a 2-candidate preferred basis.

There will be a delay as nearly 3 million postal votes have already been issued.

Have you voted already?