South Australian electoral authorities have confirmed the discovery of two more batches of uncounted votes from the March state poll.

The uncounted ballot papers in the seats of Enfield and Newland were discovered on Tuesday.

Acting SA electoral commissioner Leah McLay said the votes wouldn’t have affected results in the March 21 election. She also apologised for the Electoral Commission of SA’s “failures” in running the vote and said investigations were under way.

“The issues we have experienced fall well short of our expectations – and those of the community,” McLay said.

“I apologise to the voters and candidates for the inconvenience and confusion that was caused and to staff who experienced issues working for ECSA.

“I want to assure everyone that action is being taken to prevent these issues happening again.”

McLay has ordered an internal investigation into what went wrong. She said it would have “everything it needs to ensure that no stone is left unturned and public confidence in the commission is upheld”.

Tuesday’s discovery comes after ECSA was forced into a further count last week after the discovery of uncounted votes in the nail-biting seat of Narungga.

It was won by One Nation candidate Chantelle Thomas by a razor-thin 58 votes over Liberal candidate Tania Stock. Thomas held on to the seat after the 81 uncounted votes were added, but the find raised concerns about the integrity of SA elections.

The ballots found on Tuesday were for the safe Labor seats of Newland, retained by Olivia Savvas, and Enfield, formerly held by Andrea Michaels and won by Lawrence Ben – SA Premier Peter Malinauskas’ former economic adviser and son-in-law of federal Labor Trade Minister Don Farrell.

All sides of SA politics have raised concerns about the missed ballots. Last week, Deputy Premier Kyam Maher committed to an independent review of ECSA processes.

On Tuesday, deputy SA Liberal leader Josh Teague said there were concerns about the election process and the opposition supported an independent review.

“It’s not the first time in these few weeks now, since the election, that additional votes are being found,” he said.

“We want to know exactly how that’s occurred and why so that we can ensure that the highest level of confidence that South Australians are entitled to have in their state election process can be upheld and maintained in the future, public trust in the democratic system.”

Republished from InDaily