publicly by electoral officials immediately after the appointed time for closure of nominations. Lower house primary, two-party and seat results since 1910 A two-party system has existed in the Australian House of Representatives since the two non-Labor parties merged in 1909. The 1910 election was the first to elect a majority government, with the Australian Labor Party concurrently winning the first Senate majority. A two-party-preferred vote (2PP) has been calculated since the 1919 change from first-past-the-post to preferential voting and subsequent introduction of the Coalition. ALP = Australian Labor Party, L+NP = grouping of Liberal/National/LNP/CLP Coalition parties (and predecessors), Oth = other parties and independents. Counting votes in elections for the House of Representatives The House of Representatives uses full preferential voting, which is known outside Australia by names such as "instant runoff voting" (IRV) and "alternative voting". When the polls close at 6 pm on election day, the votes are counted. The count is conducted by officers of the Australian Electoral Commission, watched by nominated volunteer observers from the political parties, called scrutineers, who are entitled to observe the whole voting process from the opening of the booth. The votes from each polling booth in the electorate are tallied at the office of the returning officer for the electorate. If one of the candidates has more than 50% of the vote, then they are declared elected. Australian politics are influenced by social and economic demographics, though the correlation between "class" and voting is not always simple. Typically, the National Party will poll higher in rural seats. The Liberal Party and the Australian Labor Party are not as easily generalised. In a strong seat, the elected party might win up to 80% of the two-party-preferred vote. In the 2004 federal election, the highest winning margin in a seat was 25.1%, with most seats won by a margin of less than 10%. In the remaining seats, no single candidate will have a majority of the primary votes (or first-preference votes). A hypothetical result might look like this: {| cellpadding="4" |- | White (Democrat) || style="text-align:right;"|6,000 || style="text-align:right;"|6.0% |- | Smith (Labor) || style="text-align:right;"|45,000 || style="text-align:right;"|45.0% |- | Jones (Liberal) || style="text-align:right;"|35,000 || style="text-align:right;"|35.0% |- | Johnson (Green) || style="text-align:right;"|10,000 || style="text-align:right;"|10.0% |- | Davies (Ind) || style="text-align:right;"|4,000 || style="text-align:right;"|4.0% |} On election night, an interim distribution of preferences called a TCP (two-candidate-preferred) count is performed. The electoral commission nominates the two