Tim Wilson calls on the examiners to “switch off” in informal votes for Zoe Daniel in the leaked WhatsApp messages | Australian election 2025

The liberal candidate Tim Wilson asked his examiners in Goldstein to “have informal voices that are counted for his independent rival Zoe Daniel” to cause her team to have done “with extreme precision” this week when the competition tightened.

Wilson was declared a projected winner of Goldstein last week, a seat that he lost in the 2022 elections, but the voting gap, which was significantly restricted on Thursday, with the former deputy minister now only led 294 votes.

Through the leaked news of a WhatsApp group called “Goldstein Blue Tsunami”, Wilson show the supporters that the narrowing vote should not be a problem for his campaign, but “shows the extreme necessity that examiners are available”.

“They knock us with extreme precision for us,” Wilson wrote.

The examiners are entitled to question the votes for another candidate if voting slips are unclear, have missing numbers, use words or ticks and crosses instead of numbers or are not adequately signed by an election officer of the election commission.

“If a complete recording occurs, we need a massive test team, since every voice has to be checked and it will be a race to see who can switch off most votes,” he wrote. “Let's hope that doesn't happen.

“If the teals always turn off voices and we do not do the same. They will be the voices. The difference is the difference

He added: “Unfortunately I can do that very well, but I am legally prohibited from doing this with this vote because I am a candidate.”

In response to the news, Daniel said: “As always, I thank my volunteers for their participation in an open honest democratic process.”

On Wednesday evening she used a social media contribution to say that she hoped that a number of internal postal votes would come to her in the next two days.

“No matter what, as always, I am so much of love, support and wild determination that has been sent in the past a week and a half,” said Daniel.

When Wilson was contacted with the WhatsApp messages after comments, he said that it turned “a lot” liberal and that this process of saying goodbye to informal voices has nothing unusual.

“They knock informal votes for us,” said Wilson. “We knock informal votes for you. None of it is new.”

He also quoted training material from Daniel's campaign, which Guardian Australia saw and proves the examiners to carefully draw Wilson's voices.

“We only challenge Tim Wilson's voices,” says the training manual. “It is not necessary to check whether Zoe's ballot is formal. Tim's examiners will do that.

The tightening in Goldstein is coordinated at the head of Sydney by Bradfield, where the liberal party believes that his candidate Gisele Kapterian will win, despite the independent Nicolette Boele, who reduces her lead to just 43 votes after 80 on Wednesday afternoon.

Another 200 votes are expected to count on Thursday. Around 2,000 mail votes must be returned in the seat before Friday. Around 500 absences are also true.

Media, including the ABC and Sky News, described the headquarters for Kapterian this week, but there was “doubts” when their leadership shrank.

Automatic recording is ordered for each seat with a rim of less than 100 votes.

The officials of the Australian election commission reorganized the two-party count at the New South Wales seat of Hunter on Thursday, where Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party drawed second place.

Dan Repacholi from Labor is on the right track for a margin of 10%, despite the stronger than expected performance of a nation bond. The candidate of nationals, Sue Gilroy, suffered more than 6% of her and moved her to third place.