Liberal Dan Tehan fails in Warrnambool, wins in Hamilton and smaller towns of Wannon

All the top four candidates in the Wannon race managed to win their home towns, with incumbent Liberal MP Dan Tehan victorious in Hamilton, Labor's Gilbert Wilson winning in Portland, and Greens candidate Hilary McAllister taking out Aireys Inlet.

Mr Dyson won the primary vote in three of Warrnambool's five polling booths on election day, thanks to swings of up to 22 per cent compared to his 2019 tallies.

Mr Tehan managed to scrape home in the other two Warrnambool booths, but he suffered swings against him in the high single digits. The story was even worse for Mr Wilson, who notched negative swings beyond 10 per cent at every booth in Wannon's biggest city.

Mr Dyson said it was "very cool" to win his home town, but his advantage melted away as soon as you crossed the city limits. In Allansford Mr Tehan won the primary vote by 18 percentage points, although Mr Dyson still had a notable 15 point swing from 2019.

Mr Tehan also edged out Mr Dyson in Port Fairy, 40 to 36, despite Mr Dyson recording a huge 20.5 point swing, while Koroit also voted for Mr Tehan 40 to 32, surviving an 18 point swing for Mr Dyson.

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But the smaller towns were generally friendly territory for the Liberal member.

In Terang Mr Tehan took 55 per cent of the primary vote, in Mortlake 46 per cent, Casterton 53 per cent, Hawkesdale 63 per cent, Skipton 58 per cent, and Simpson an enormous 68 per cent.

The towns along the Shipwreck Coast swung heavily for Mr Dyson, with Peterborough, Port Campbell and Princetown each recording swings of more than 20 points for the independent, while Mr Tehan suffered swings against him of between 15 and 25 points.

Outside of Portland, where he took more than 30 per cent of the primary vote, Mr Wilson found few booths where he could garner more than 20 per cent.

Some exceptions were Ararat, where he won nearly 30 per cent of first preferences and the far east of Wannon, which was part of Corangamite in 2019: Winchelsea, where he took 26 per cent, Lorne, where he managed 22 per cent, and Apollo Bay, where he took in 24 per cent.

While the Australian Electoral Commission said pre-poll ballots had not all been counted yet, Mr Tehan appears to have won the pre-poll booths by similar margins to his overall result.

At the Warrnambool pre-poll booth, which was plagued by its dangerous location and poor parking facilities, Mr Tehan took 46 per cent of first preferences, while at the Ararat and Ballarat pre-polls Mr Tehan won 42 and 45 per cent of primary votes. The only exception was the Torquay booth, where Mr Tehan scraped home with 30 per cent to Mr Wilson's 25 and Ms McAllister's 23 per cent.

A spokesman for the AEC said counters were still tallying ballots, most of which were postal votes. AEC data showed that of 13,137 postal votes issued, 10,741 had been received back. Of these, 505 had been "rejected at preliminary scrutiny" for things like not having a signed declaration by a witness.

The data also showed that five people sent back their postal vote envelopes without any ballot papers inside. There are at least 8200 postal votes still to be counted, with envelopes continuing to trickle in.

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