Reggie Martin’s head finally hit the pillow about 12.30am, hours after the voters of Fisher had delivered what turned out to be a precarious, perplexing verdict.

At this point though, Labor’s candidate, Nat Cook, had a two-party-preferred lead of well over 600 (even if the Electoral Commission hadn’t acknowledged it yet), so the party’s state secretary had every reason to sleep soundly: he had, in all likelihood, helped deliver Labor majority Government in South Australia.

Little more than half an hour later, however, any suggestion of a sound night’s sleep was well and truly banished when his wife went into early labour.

Their second child, a girl, was born around 9am on the Sunday morning.

About four hours later, none the wiser, I rang him to check the official view of the by-election wash-up. What was left to count? Was the party confident? He discussed these points for a few minutes until I finally asked how much longer the checking process would continue that day. “Um…to be honest,” he apologised, “my wife and I had a baby girl about four hours ago, so I’m not entirely across all that right now.”

I magnanimously forgave him this oversight, as I was somewhat more perplexed he’d even picked up my call in the first place. He was back scrutineering the count the following Saturday, and Monday’s recount.

It was around that time that I put a call into Liberal state director Geoff Greene, sometime during the crazy course of last weekend, as the Fisher count ebbed and flowed between a likely Liberal win, as Heidi Harris surged in pre-poll counting to snatch a 17 vote lead, and the potential for a third candidate, Independent Dan Woodyatt, to haul in Labor’s headstart and take the seat on preferences.

I quickly hung up the phone, as the unusual dial tone intimated my intended interlocutor had skipped the country. I was subsequently informed by other Liberals left to carry the can that he was off on annual leave.

That’s despite the Fisher result still not being known, and despite growing questions about whether the Liberals’ campaign strategy had fallen flat. Not to mention, despite another by-election on January 31 in neighbouring Davenport, in which the Liberals now not only can’t afford to lose, they can’t afford to lose ground.

For the Liberals … Fisher really was one of those “sliding doors” moments.

I put it to Opposition stalwart Rob Lucas that the contrast last week between Labor’s state secretary and the Liberals’ state director provided a fairly cogent symbol of why Labor was, bizarrely, the favourite to win the seat of Fisher for the first time sine 1989. Lucas demurred; he was not, he said, into symbols. He was into garnering enough votes to win the seat. Sadly though, that horse had largely bolted.

Labor prevailed by 23, which became nine on a recount. Which, in an electorate of some 25,000, is a fine rejoinder to those who feel their vote won’t make a difference and moreover an object lesson in the importance of filling in one’s ballot paper correctly.

The final margin did not change because of some previous counting error, but because there were enough votes cast that could credibly be argued were informal, and both parties argued credibly until, incredibly, Labor’s 23 vote lead was whittled away to single figures. Hundreds of votes were deemed suspect by both sides, and each was scrutineered and scrutinised until all arguments were exhausted, and in the end it came down to just 9. Nine votes. Two or three households, perhaps; another five minutes of amiable doorknocking.

I wonder if the SA Liberals’ favourite federal colleague (and the list is long and distinguished) David Johnston still reckons his “wouldn’t trust them to build a canoe” gaffe wasn’t a factor in the outcome because Labor only ended up with 26.7% of the primary vote?

For the Liberals though, Fisher really was one of those “sliding doors” moments. Had Heidi Harris been preselected ahead of the March state election, instead of an Evans acolyte, it seems likely that Bob Such would not have stood for re-election, and neither the Fisher nor the Davenport by-election would have ever taken place. We wouldn’t be debating where the Libs have gone wrong, because they’d be on the verge of celebrating their first year in office.

Them’s the breaks.

The biggest break for Labor, of course, was Daniel Woodyatt. Without a significant third candidate (and he was canny enough to understand that the endorsement of Lyn Such made him a significant candidate), the Libs would have won comfortably. As it turned out, by the last day of counting, they were already the least likely of three hopefuls. Labor’s 20-odd vote lead appeared (and proved) unassailable; slim, but irresistible. It was more likely that Woody would chop away at Labor’s lead once the preferences of all the minor candidates were distributed and displace Nat Cook as the second candidate; with the benefit of all Labor’s preferences, that would have seen the independent take Fisher by a considerable margin.

Despite the complexities of our electoral system, this was a scenario Woodyatt was well across. He always knew he had to be within about three per cent of Labor’s primary vote to haul them in after preferences. In the end, he fell just 219 votes short in the recount.

He has spent the rest of this week, as Cook was formally declared the winner of one of the most bizarre by-election contests in this state’s political history, considering his legal position. He quickly retained counsel and sought advice on the likely success of a challenge to the result in the court of disputed returns. That’s despite claiming he might not run again if a fresh election is called.

It’s certainly arguable that the Liberals’ deliberate and concerted campaign targeting Woodyatt cost him support. The party was forced to withdraw one leaflet. Another Independent, Robert de Jonge, was ordered to withdraw how-to-vote cards that preferenced the Liberals second, despite earlier submitting a split ticket to the electoral commission. Robert de Jonge, as it happens, is a paid-up Liberal Party member who ran unsuccessfully for preselection. As an independent, he ended up with 809 votes. It’s not clear how many Liberal-leaning how-to-vote cards he managed to distribute, but it certainly seems enough to call 219 votes into question.

But nonetheless, in my view, Woodyatt must swallow the bitter pill of this result and let Fisher go, at least for now. He ran an incredible campaign and turned the result on its head; he’d feel hollow to have missed out by so few votes. But while the Liberals were ordered to withdraw their leaflets, they contained nothing provably incorrect. They were merely deemed irrelevant by Electoral Commissioner Kay Mousley.

Moreover though, this result has been an ordeal for the constituents of Fisher, who lost their cherished local MP and then endured a bitter campaign, a seesawing week of counting and a nail-biting recount. Somehow a nine vote win seems the appropriate finale for such a contest; better, certainly, than months of legal wrangling while the seat, the parliament and the government of SA remain in limbo.

It’s time now to let it rest.

Time too, to spare a thought for Bob Such, whose untimely passing precipitated this entire drama.

Rob Lucas may not be much into symbolism, but it’s fair to say this result is a fair reflection of just how tough the incumbent was to replace.

Tom Richardson is InDaily’s political commentator and, until this week, Channel Nine’s state political reporter.

He will join our full-time reporting staff on 12 January.

This is Tom’s last column for the year. His next column will be published on 16 January.