The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is investigating how nearly 2000 missing ballot papers from the federal election were found at a temporary electoral worker’s Sydney home.

Officials from the AEC say because the votes had already been counted, the incident did not impact the result in the NSW seat of Barton.

But they admit it shouldn’t have happened and an inquiry has been opened to examine whether improvements in the electoral process are needed.

The worker picked up a secure container filled with 1866 House of Representatives votes from a polling booth in the Sydney suburb of Hurstville after polls finished on election night, but didn’t take it to the AEC’s central counting centre.

The ballot papers were securely packaged in the presence of scrutineers with an authorised transport officer collecting two ballot paper transport containers.

When AEC officials started the routine recount of votes last week, they realised one container was missing.

All the other six transport containers for the polling centre were accounted for.

“The AEC exhausted numerous avenues of inquiry, ascertaining that the authorised transport officer inadvertently maintained possession of the single missing container, ” an AEC spokesperson said.

“It was recovered from the transport officer fully intact, with all uniquely coded security seals unbroken, and without any damage.

“All ballot papers were still in the recovered ballot paper transport container and were promptly returned to the counting centre and have undergone fresh scrutiny. The fresh scrutiny count matched the initial count and the election in the division of Barton was unaffected by this incident.”

The spokesperson says the incident does not appear to be a deliberate act, but the AEC did experience problems in communicating with the worker.

“This shouldn’t have occurred, and the AEC is deeply concerned that on this single occasion our process did not prevent the issue on polling night when ballot papers were initially returned.

“However, the further layers of ballot paper tracking processes in place for many elections did ultimately identify the issue and help rectify the situation.

“Nonetheless, work is already underway to further investigate this incident to understand what, if any, elements of the return of materials process need to be changed for future elections.”

The Barton seat was won by Labor’s Ash Ambihaipahar, defeating Liberal Fiona Douskou with more than 60 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote.