But WA Electoral Commissioner Warwick Gately has defended the commission's performance.

Edith Cowan University political analyst Peter Van Onselen said he thought the WA Electoral Commission had done "a pretty average job" in the lead up to the election.

There had been problems with voters not able to vote ahead of the election, slow and in some cases inaccurate release of data and slow counting since the weekend poll, he said.

"The WA Electoral Commission I think have been on the verge of a national embarrassment the way they have conducted this, I really do," Dr Van Onselen said.

"And then post the count, apart from the fact they didn't bother to work on Sunday, the counting has been very slow," he said.

Mr Gately said there had been issues in respect to getting data from various outstations across the state on Saturday but the operation was complex.

"So there was a slowness in collecting that data and inherently a slowness in getting that to the media, look I accept that," Mr Gately said.

"No doubt there were challenges in some of those isolated areas to get the counting done but look it's a complex operation this," he said.

"I don't want to overstate it but it requires the movement of a lot of material around the state to get it back in Perth."

Mr Gately said he would probably always be at odds with the media and the candidates who wanted a speedy result.

"Where they want a quick result and want to be able to analyse and predict on it I want an accurate result, a careful result and a result that stands up to scrutiny and that's my obligation to the electors and to parliament," he said.

The sheer volume of postal votes ahead of the poll had posed challenges for the electoral commission and postal voting did not close until Thursday, Mr Gately said.

Full distribution of the very close seats this weekend would allow a clear result, he said.

"So again it's deliberate counting, I'm being careful in my process and I don't want to change process and find that I've stumbled on the way through."

Mr Gateley said some areas had lacked finesse but the commission had delivered what it was obliged to and reports of people not being able to vote had been exaggerated.

"A lot of the stories tend to get embellished," he said.

Voters who arrived at polls to find they were not on the roll had been able to cast provisional votes which were verified later, Mr Gately said.