The Liberal National party is ahead by just one vote in the north Queensland seat of Herbert as the recount continues on Sunday, with talk of a messy resolution ending up in the court of disputed returns.

Herbert is the last federal seat to be decided in the 2016 election.

If the Turnbull government can retain the seat it will have 77 seats in the 150-seat parliament, allowing it to appoint a speaker while retaining an absolute majority.

But the fate of the seat remains in the balance, with the Australian Electoral Commission saying the recount could take two weeks.

It appears likely Labor or the Liberal National party will end up taking the final result to the court of disputed returns, arguing for a fresh election.

It has been reported as many as 85 of the 628 army members who the Australian defence force says did not cast votes while they were on exercise in South Australia could have been personnel from Townsville.

There have also been accusations of absentee ballot papers not being made available to Herbert voters in other north Queensland seats.

On Sunday the attorney general, George Brandis, said regardless of the outcome of the recount, the Liberal National party should “rejoice in its own success” at the election.

“The government went backwards in a number of states but in Queensland, depending on what happens in the Herbert recount, either we will have kept the same number of seats in the House of Representatives or, on a worse-case scenario, have gone backwards by one,” he said.

“The federal election was a great success for the LNP.”

When the first count in Herbert finished last week, Labor’s Cathy O’Toole led the sitting Coalition MP Ewen Jones by just eight votes.

A margin of less than a hundred votes in any seat is cause for an automatic recount.

Australian Associated Press contributed to this report