SYDNEY — The two men seeking to emerge as Australia’s prime minister after national elections Saturday, Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, have begun a delicate courtship of a handful of lawmakers who are likely to hold the balance of power in the next Parliament.

Officials will resume counting votes Tuesday for about a dozen seats that are too close to call. The Liberal Party, governing in a coalition with the National Party, says that postal and prepolling ballots that are yet to be counted will be crucial to its securing a 76-seat majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives. As of Monday, neither the Liberal National coalition, led by Turnbull, nor the Labor Party, led by Shorten, had won enough seats outright to form a government.

Vote would not fully resume until Tuesday, the Electoral Commission said, with the governing coalition at 67 seats and the Labor Party at 71. If neither side can form a clear majority government, the party that secures the support of enough minor-party lawmakers to win at least 76 seats can form a government.

“Australian voters are changing,’’ said Bob Katter, an independent whose electorate covers about 193,000 square miles of central Queensland. “In the past, I could run around and kiss babies and mouth party platitudes and expect to get reelected.’’

But that was when he was a member of the National Party, he said, adding that now, candidates must be much more responsive to the needs of their constituents. Katter easily won his rural seat.

New York Times