Incumbent member for Wannon Dan Tehan looks set to retain his seat.
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However, a win looks likely to be a far cry from his runaway victory 2019, when he increased his margin to more than 10 per cent in the safe Liberal seat.
Mr Tehan refrained from declaring victory on Sunday as the uncertainty of preference flows left the result in the balance.
The Australian Electoral Commission confirmed only a small number of postal votes would be counted on Sunday, while counting of the remaining votes would resume on Monday.
Independent candidate Alex Dyson was sitting in second place with 20.4 per cent of first preferences on Sunday, with Labor's Gilbert Wilson right behind him on 19 per cent.
Mr Tehan was in the box seat, with 44.4 per cent of the first preference votes, but with three quarters of ballots counted there was still a degree of doubt.
Wannon has been a safely-held Liberal seat since 1955 and in that time Labor has consistently amassed the second highest proportion of the votes.
"Obviously I've always been very cautious (in declaring a win) and I want to respect the will of the electorate," Mr Tehan said on Sunday.
"There are still votes to be counted and I very much want to wait and see what the final outcome is."
Mr Tehan congratulated the other candidates on their efforts.
"Once again I would just like to congratulate everyone who put themselves forward in this election," he said.
"The voters of Wannon had a very good choice."
Many news outlets called the race for Mr Tehan early based on two candidate calculations that allocated preference flows to Mr Tehan and Mr Wilson, despite Mr Dyson sitting above Mr Wilson on first preference votes.
This is because the Australian Electoral Commission has to make a prediction prior to election day about who the top two candidates will be. This prediction is often based on the result in the prior election, and in Wannon the top two candidates in 2019 were Mr Tehan and his Labor opponent.
When it becomes clear on election night that the AEC prediction is wrong, the AEC stops showing a two candidate preferred prediction and the preferences are reallocated.
This is what occurred shortly before 11pm on Saturday night.
Late on Saturday evening, Mr Dyson said he wasn't ready to concede the race, saying it was "incredible" how close it was and that he had doubled his share of the primary vote since the 2019 election.
"I think we've seen the importance of listening to people," he said.
"In a safe seat you can think that your vote doesn't make a difference, but people are realising how powerful their vote is and really thinking about it."
Mr Dyson said he was thankful to his supporters and "proud of everyone in Wannon for not taking their vote for granted and making sure Wannon isn't taken for granted".
He said it had been a different campaign experience compared with 2019.
"It's been a much longer campaign and a slightly more serious campaign, but I feel like I've been even more myself, because I'm not just a joker all the time."
Mr Dyson was on track to win several of the polling booths around Warrnambool.
"It's so cool that the home town has back me. I'm more than 100 votes ahead at the Brauer College booth and well ahead at Warrnambool Primary, my old school," he said.
Asked whether he would run again if he didn't get over the line, Mr Dyson said it would depend.
"If Wannon is facing the same issues and they haven't been addressed - if there's still a lack of housing, and terrible roads, and no anti-corruption commission, and poor access to healthcare, and Wannon's still missing out - then sure, I'll run again," he said.
"If all the problems get fixed then there's not so much need for an Alex Dyson. If politicians are able to start divvying out funds on a needs basis rather than a winning-elections basis then there will be no need for me to run."
He said regardless of where the preferences fell in the coming days he had definitively "made Wannon marginal" and given Mr Tehan "a scare".
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