Liberal ACT Senator Zed Seselja has backed fellow conservative Alistair Coe as the "best alternative standout" should a leadership change occur in the Canberra Liberals.
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Counting continued on Monday morning, and most of the first preference votes have now been counted.
Results on Monday were showing swings against all major parties, including a slight weakening of the Labor and Greens vote. The swing against the Liberals was still by far the worst on Monday morning, at minus 2.6 per cent.
The poor result has inevitably raised questions about the Canberra Liberals' leadership.
Moderate and Opposition Leader Jeremy Hanson was frank about the issue on Sunday, saying Mr Coe would be the next leader, it was just a question of when.
The party room is expected to meet at some point next week, after the final outcome is known.
Senator Seselja was asked about the leadership issue on Monday morning, and said Mr Coe was the "best alternative standout".
"That's going to be a matter for the party room, and the party room, we don't even know the shape of it yet," he told the ABC.
"Whether we stay with Jeremy or whether there is a switch to Alistair I think both of those are outstanding.
"If Alistair were chosen by his party room to lead, I'm sure he would do an outstanding job."
He said there was "no doubt" that Mr Coe was the "best alternative standout" if Mr Hanson was not leader.
"Alistair I think has carried a very heavy load over the last four years as deputy and I think has performed very, very well," he said.
"If the party chooses him to succeed Jeremy, I mean Jeremy said publicly yesterday that Alistair will be the leader at some point, it's a question of whether it's in the short-term or the medium-term."
Counting continued on Monday morning, and most of the first preference votes have now been counted.
There were still about 14,500 postal and other votes to be counted for first preferences, and postal votes will continue to flow in until Friday.
Electoral Commissioner Phil Green described this part of the process as "painstaking".
"These votes are all enclosed in declaration envelopes that need to be checked against the electoral roll to determine whether the elector is entitled to vote in the election," he said.
"This is a painstaking process that will continue for the rest of this week."
The distribution of preferences is also continuing and the results will be updated nightly. Elections ACT staff are also electronically scanning and verifying all preferences on paper ballots.
"As postal votes can be received up until Friday 21 October, the final result cannot be determined until all of these votes have been processed and included in the count. This cannot occur until Saturday 22 October at the earliest," he said.
