O'Brien gaining on Palmer in Fairfax

Major party MPs have defended the Australian Electoral Commission amid attacks by Clive Palmer. Source: AAP

THE Queensland seat of Fairfax is on a knife edge, with only 64 votes separating Clive Palmer and Liberal National Party rival Ted O'Brien.

The mining magnate had a strong lead 10 days ago on election night, but postal and pre-poll votes are flowing to the LNP and had slimmed the gap to just a handful of votes by Tuesday afternoon.

Mr Palmer has formally requested the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) conduct a recount in the Sunshine Coast-based seat, citing vote tampering and "irregularities" with the counting process.

The Palmer United Party leader has over the past week accused both the LNP and AEC of vote fraud and applied for a Federal Court injunction to stop the count in Fairfax.

The case was thrown out of court.

Mr Palmer has griped that there were 768 more Senate pre-poll ballot papers in a booth that did not have corresponding lower-house tickets.

"It would seem on the basis of the evidence that a fraud has been committed and that the AEC is now seeking to cover up this matter by creating and/or transferring ballots between booths," he said in a statement on Tuesday.

"Massive evidence is mounting to suggest this election has been rigged."

Mr Palmer also aired his grievances on ABC television on Monday night, claiming former military officers were controlling the electoral commission and rigging the election.

Senator Nick Xenophon, who was also on the Q&A program, called on Mr Palmer to apologise to the AEC.

"Clive Palmer would simply be a national laughing stock if his comments didn't impugn the integrity of the AEC," Senator Xenophon said.

"This follows his previous unsubstantiated and baseless statements that Greenpeace is funded by the CIA and (Rupert Murdoch's ex-wife) Wendy Deng is a Chinese spy.

"The integrity and decency of the AEC is beyond question, and to publicly impugn divisional returning officers simply because they're former military officers is grossly offensive to both serving and former military officers."

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