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Darling Range by-election: Liberals triumph after Barry Urban scandal as Labor concedes defeat

The Liberal Party has won the Darling Range by-election in Western Australia, regaining the seat vacated by disgraced former Labor MP Barry Urban.

A big 9.1 per cent swing from Labor to the Liberals left the Opposition with 53.3 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, with more than 76 per cent of the votes counted.

It means Liberal candidate Alyssa Hayden will be the next member for Darling Range.

Premier Mark McGowan and Labor candidate Tania Lawrence conceded defeat and congratulated the Liberals and Ms Hayden.

Mr McGowan said he remained proud of Labor's "positive campaign" despite the result.

"It was a very tough by-election and very tough circumstances," he said.

"The circumstances were not of our choosing, [they were] circumstances beyond our control, and clearly they had an impact."

The result comes more than a month after Mr Urban resigned from the WA Parliament before he could be sacked for repeatedly lying about his past.

A powerful committee found the former Labor-turned-independent MP had lied to the public and Parliament for years about his police service and his education history.

Among his background details rubbished by the committee was Mr Urban's claim he served as a war crimes investigator in the Balkans.

Just weeks after Mr Urban's exit, Labor's first by-election candidate Colleen Yates quit the race when she admitted to misrepresenting her own education history.

Her campaign began to unravel when it emerged she had listed an "MBA" from the University of Western Australia on a now-deleted LinkedIn profile, even though she had not completed the qualification.

The events proved too much for the party's second candidate, Ms Lawrence, to recover from.

Turnout at the polls was 76.9 per cent, a figure ABC election analyst Antony Green described as "reasonable" for a WA state by-election.

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