VICTORIANS will probably have to wait another day for an election result as counting in the pivotal seat of Bentleigh continues.

The Victorian Electoral Commission says it is increasingly unlikely a result will be declared on Monday in Bentleigh, which is the last seat the coalition needs to win government.

At the close of counting on Sunday, Liberal candidate Elizabeth Miller was leading in the suburban seat by just 423 votes against Labor's Rob Hudson.

With up to 3,000 postal, early and absentee votes still to be counted, Bentleigh is too close to call.

VEC spokeswoman Sue Lang said counting of 650 postal votes would begin at 4pm today after the ballots had been authenticated.

But counting of the remaining 1,000 early votes would not take place until tomorrow.

Ms Lang said an unknown number of absentee and provision votes was still coming in, taking the number of uncounted votes to several thousand.

"It could be as many as 3,000," she said.

"It's looking likely now we're not going to have an answer until tomorrow."

Caretaker Premier John Brumby was believed to be preparing to concede defeat today but will hold out until the seat of Bentleigh and possibly others are declared.

The coalition shadow cabinet met at Parliament House on Monday morning and is waiting for Labor to concede defeat so it can declare victory.

The Liberal-Nationals have 44 seats in the 88-seat lower house to Labor's 43.

They need 45 to form majority government.

Mr Brumby told a news conference yesyerday that it would be "the height of disrespect" to declare a result before a record half-million early votes had been counted.

The Labor-held seats of Eltham, Macedon and Ballarat East still hang in the balance and are leaning towards the ALP by fewer than 1,000 votes.

Ms Lang said counting of early votes began in the seat of Eltham at 2pm today, while rechecking of votes in Macedon was under way.

But it was possible counting in Ballarat East would not resume tomorrow, she said.

"Some (votes) haven't arrived, some are still coming in the mail, you have to go through integrity checks," she said.

"It's so important given how close it is to get it absolutely right."

Speaking after the meeting at Parliament House, Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said that when Labor chose to concede defeat was a matter for the premier and Victorians would judge him for it.

"The way he approaches it will be the way he is judged. What we are doing is getting on with the job of being ready to govern," he told reporters.

"As I said on Saturday night, we are ready to govern, we want to make sure that we are in a position to do that in the event that we are asked to do so."

Mr Baillieu described the shadow cabinet meeting as long, productive and responsible.

The Liberal leader said he and Nationals leader Peter Ryan were excited by the opportunities ahead but were not getting ahead of themselves.

Mr Ryan said the sooner the result was declared the better.