Morrison and Albanese make final pitch to voters as last-minute polls tip Labor for election victory

More than six million people have already cast a vote in the election, with 4.6 million voting at pre-poll centres in the past two weeks, and more than two million applying for a postal vote.

After a last-minute scramble by the Australian Electoral Commission to address an anomaly that would have seen a cohort of Covid-positive Australians miss out on voting, an extra 100,000 people are also expected to be able able to take part in telephone voting on Saturday.

On Friday morning, the AEC said it had identified capacity in its phone voting system, but warned voters may face delays due to the increased demand.

Labor is hopeful Albanese has run a strong enough campaign to deliver the seven seats it needs to form majority government, while the Coalition is hoping to upset that plan by winning seats off the Labor party and limiting its losses.

Labor holds a notional 69 seats in the 151-seat House of Representatives, compared to the 75 held by the Liberal and National parties. A total of 76 seats are needed to form majority government.

Aside from the marginal seat contest between Labor and the Coalition, the Liberal party will also be watching closely what happens in the so-called teal seats of Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, where independent candidates are threatening to knock off the incumbents.

This includes the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, in Kooyong, who is under threat from the independent candidate Monique Ryan, who on Friday was gathering support for an urgent federal court case against the special minister of state, Ben Morton, to fix the AEC voting issue.

In the event of a close contest, it is unlikely a result will be known on Saturday night, with counting of postal ballots not to begin until Sunday.

Albanese spoke emotionally about his journey from being the son of a single mother in Camperdown to now running to become prime minister.