The Poll Bludger’s lower house predictions left a bit to be desired – I underestimated the Nationals, failed to spot Labor’s troubles in Gippsland, missed Russell Savage’s defeat in Mildura, punted on some roughies that failed to come home (Eltham and South West Coast) and got suckered in by some faulty conventional wisdom (South Barwon and Melbourne). However, I can claim to have salvaged some pride with my upper house predictions, all of which are looking good except my call of three Liberal and two Labor in Western Victoria, which will likely be the other way round (UPDATE: See below). Given that my prediction was for a total of 20 seats for Labor, the Western Victoria bonus would give them the magic 21 seats and an absolute majority in the 40-seat chamber. Bearing in mind that the VEC still only has results in from 1744 out of 2416 voting centres, the picture appears as follows in the eight regions listed in rough order of interest (if any).
1. David Davis (Liberal)
2. John Lenders (Labor)
3. Andrea Coote (Liberal)
4. Sue Pennicuik (Greens)
5. Evan Thornley (Labor) leads David Southwick (Liberal)
Labor is coming perilously close to having its star candidate Evan Thornley lose to the third Liberal. The Greens have a quota without much room to spare after preferences from the Democrats boost them from 15.64 per cent to 17.31 per cent, above the magic number of 16.67 per cent. Similarly, Evan Thornley starts out with Labor’s 14.98 per cent surplus over the first quota and just gets there with preferences from independent Rita Bentley (0.38 per cent) and People Power (1.37 per cent), boosting him to 16.73 per cent. He will further get the Greens surplus if he needs it, which on current figures will boost him 0.60 per cent to a total of 17.33 per cent. That gives him an uncomfortable lead of 0.66 per cent; if this lead evaporates, Family First preferences will put the Liberals’ David Southwick over the line. It is interesting that Rita Bentley is giving Thornley such a valuable boost, as her preference ticket singles him out for special treatment – Thornley is in third place behind Bentley’s running mate Geoff Taylor, while the other Labor candidates are behind the Liberals.
1. Jaala Pulford (Labor)
2. John Vogels (Liberal)
3. Gayle Tierney (Labor)
4. David Koch (Liberal)
5. Elaine Carbines (Labor) leads Peter Kavanagh (DLP)
With Labor and Liberal winning two seats each, the final seat has emerged as a contest between Labor and the Greens with the tide continuing to flow to Labor. At the critical point of the count, Labor leads 9.13 per cent to the Greens’ 8.46 per cent (their 8.17 per cent primary vote plus preferences from the Socialist Alliance). Whichever of the two emerges in front will get to a quota on the preferences of the other, leapfrogging either the Nationals or the DLP. (UPDATE: The previous statement was based on the erroneous assumption that Labor preferences would go to the Greens rather than the DLP. In fact, if Labor falls behind the Greens – which is reckoned to be at least possible by those in the know – their preferences will deliver the seat to the DLP).
1. Justin Madden (Labor)
2. Khalil Eideh (Labor)
3. Martin Pakula (Labor)
4. Bernie Finn (Liberal)
5. Henry Barlow (Labor) leads Colleen Hartland (Greens)
After the first four seats go three Labor and one Liberal, Labor is leading the Greens in the race for the fifth seat. Labor has 9.31 per cent over the third quota against the Greens’ total of 9.14 per cent. Labor is then boosted by preferences from People Power (1.24 per cent) and the DLP (0.99 per cent), while the Greens get preferences from the Democrats (0.94 per cent) – leaving Labor with a lead of 11.54 per cent to 10.08 per cent at the critical point of the count. Whichever of the two ends up behind here will propel the other over the second Liberal candidate (7.80 per cent boosted to 11.72 per cent after Family First preferences).
1. Richard Dalla Riva (Liberal)
2. Shaun Leane (Labor)
3. Bruce Atkinson (Liberal)
4. Brian Tee (Labor)
5. Jan Kronberg (Liberal) leads Bill Pemberton (Greens)
After the election of two Liberal and two Labor candidates, the fifth place emerges as a close contest between Liberal and the Greens. The Greens appeared to have the edge earlier in the count, but the tide has continued to flow in the Liberals’ direction. The Liberals are currently on 11.72 per cent above their second quota, with the Greens on 10.30 per cent. With the Liberals further boosted by 4.36 per cent from the strongly performing Family First, the current result at the final count is Liberal 17.48 per cent and the Greens 15.86 per cent – surely an unbridgeable gap.
1. Theo Theophanous (Labor)
2. Jenny Mikakos (Labor)
3. Matthew Guy (Liberal)
4. Nazih Elasmar (Labor)
5. Greg Barber (Greens)
The remarkable thing about the DLP’s near-miss was that it was not entirely down to the strength of their preference arrangements, which were inferior to those of People Power and the Democrats. Their vote of 4.85 per cent may well have been boosted by their position on the far left of the ballot paper, echoing their strong 2.3 per cent Senate vote when they were similarly placed in 2001. It was suggested on that occasion that they had benefited from confused Labor voters. However, the miracle ultimately failed to eventuate because the Greens vote has steadily increased to 16.09 per cent as counting has progressed, lifting them above a 16.67 per cent quota with the addition of 1.13 per cent from the Democrats as preferences.
1. Candy Broad (Labor)
2. Wendy Lovell (Liberal)
3. Damian Drum (Nationals)
4. Donna Petrovich (Liberal)
5. Kaye Darveniza (Labor)
The collective Coalition vote was 50.54 per cent, or a clear three quotas. With the Liberal vote on 28.65 per cent (11.98 above the first quota) and the Nationals on 21.89 per cent (5.22 per cent), these seats went two Liberal and one Nationals. Labor polled 30.05 per cent (13.38 per cent over a quota) to the Greens’ 6.86 per cent; to that the Greens could add only a tiny Coalition surplus plus further preferences from some surprising sources, with the Christian Democratic Party and the DLP both putting the Greens ahead of Labor. That still left them well short of a quota, with Labor coasting home on preferences from Family First (3.66 per cent) and the Country Alliance (2.32 per cent).
1. Philip Davis (Liberal)
2. Matt Viney (Labor)
3. Edward O’Donohue (Liberal)
4. Peter Hall (Nationals)
5. Johan Scheffer (Labor)
A straightforward result with a clear two quotas to Labor (35.36 per cent) and three for the Coalition after the addition of Family First preferences. The Nationals polled 9.70 per cent against the 4.65 per cent Liberal surplus over the second quota, and thus emerged with the third Coalition seat.
1. Gavin Jennings (Labor)
2. Adem Somyurek (Labor)
3. Gordon Rich-Phillips (Liberal)
4. Bob Smith (Labor)
5. Inga Peulich (Liberal)
Another refreshingly straightforward outcome with Labor on just over three quotas (50.72 per cent) and the Liberals just over two (33.50 per cent).
I think the other main reason the Nats gained this time is because they had to run everywhere really hard in order to have a chance in the upper house.
I ahve been telling you guys there is a lot of concern about about the way this count has been undertaken. I have just been talking to some senior contact I have in the Liberal party and they are saying the same Labor and the Greens.. The conduct of the electon is well below par and expectations.
There was rports of the wrong ballot papers being handed out in Gembrook. I am still seeking confirmation and details of this.
As this is an upperhouse thread the isse that is still unknown and could efefect Southern and Western Victoria is how many Green BTL votes exaughst. If the number is over a thousand then its a very close race indeed. I am still writing for reports from scrutineers who are also concerned and my contacts. Talk is that we will not know until some time next week is what I am being told.
The VEC website is still reporting that not all polling places are recorded for the upper house yet the lower house has a full count. If the VEC treated pre-poll and Absentee votes as a separate polling place we would have a better way of falling the progress. Again in the absence of detailed polling both data it is impossible to effectively monitor the upper-house count.
Howard if you read my post above about the early days of the reform proposals we were looking at a 5 x 9 model Five seats none member and also a 5 x 7 model. There were suggestions of a 7 x 7 but this had issues. 1) the community of interest issue. 2) it did not fit into the lower house nexus 3) it mean an increase in the number of MPs which was not available. But yes I agree an even number of seats create problems. If you apply the 1992 and 1996 or even the 2004 senate results to the new boundaries then the Liberal party would have had control of the upper-house. The main difference with the Australian PR system is we have preferential voting and not a party list system. The jury is still out on the issue of optional preferential voting.
The other issue which Antony has not yet analysis is the segmentation and order of election. Some votes retain a higher value and are not mixed into the general distribution of a candidates votes. Some of the BTL votes decrease in value as a result of the paper based surplus and increase the value of the party vote. It not clear at this stage to what extent but it can be in the 100’s…
The liberal party think it is close and they are monitoring the election and calling for more scrutineers. The Greens are looking closer at Western Victoria and secretly are hoping that Labor will lose in the West and that Green votes will exhaust. Why? Because if it does then their influence in the upper-house increases ten fold.
As long as Scrutineers do not have the information necessary or access to the data file they are walking around in very tall grass or lost in a thick fog… No one knows how many votes have been issued and whats outstanding? Information on absentees votes still have not been tabulated. In time I am sure they will but they should have been able to provide this information well and truly by now.
Yes Adam, I’ve been back in Melbourne for aout a month now(to campaign in my old seat – Prahran and get Sue Pennicuik over the line – hopefully that will happen).
I think we’ll have to disagree on the Greens. As I have said before, The Greens took a hell of a lot of hits from about six groups, and Liberal preferences against us in the upper house hurt us. But, we got the same vote as 2002. If you were on the ground you would have noticed that Labor’s dirty campaign worked in spades.
If the Greens had enough money to counter a Labor campaign, it would have been different. Labor workers were hiding in shame at my booth when I explained preferences to voters.
I think it would be a very brave person who would bet that 10% is the ceiling for the Greens. Remember when “some people” said the Greens would languish at around 2-4% because we were a one issue party?
What is a mis-sort?
This category of vote is appearing in the web pages, lumped with informals
Welcome back to Melbourne, Dinesh – a Labor town 🙂
If you look at the history of minor parties, the pattern is for them to rise fairly rapidly to their “natural” ceiling, or in other words to fill the niche available for them, and then to fluctuate around that level until they fade away or are superceded. That’s what happened with the DLP and with the Democrats. The DLP peaked in (from memory) about 1958 and then gradually declined (with a last upward spike in 1970), then fizzled when their base collapsed in 1974. The Democrats polled much the same vote at every election from 1977 to 2001, before collapsing in 2004 when the Greens stole their base. Much the same has happened with the Greens in Germany and New Zealand, with the Lib Dems in the UK, with the NDP in Canada, and so on. The available niche for that brand of politics is only so big. So that’s my prediction for the Aust Greens – but I have been wrong before 🙂
It’s a booth total discrepancy between primary votes and two-candidate preferred results. The primary votes must be fully accounted for in each booth, but the 2CP by booth is only done for information purposes. Minor discrepencies are dealt with by ‘mis-sorts’. If there is a significant difference, the 2CP is sometimes done again. Otherwise, doing the coumt all over again just to find a one or two vote discrepancy in a booth of 3,000 votes is a bit of a waste of money.
The official 2CP in each seat is done at the district level, not the booth level, so dicrepencies in the Booth 2CP total is irrelevant. If you check published results in Victoria, you nearly always find that in seats where a full distribution of preferences is carried out, the official 2CP and the total of 2CP by booth do not necessarily add up. Not significantly different, just minor discrepencies.
SOUTHERN METRO
As of last night 66.5% of the enrolled counted. Thornley has a 0.5% lead against FF+Lib Surplus.
This is a comfortable lead assuming that a) all below the lines stay within the group and b) they do not exist. We are still left in the dark as to knowing if all postals , prepoll have been counted. There should be a progressive tally of the votes outstanding. They should know the day after closing how many ballots for each region had been issued.
The public record of the counting of the election has very little to desire. No polling booth data no ballots issued summary.
Re: ABOVE THE LINE VOTING
Its not the above-the-line that is the issue it is the registered ticket. If voters were granted the option to preference above the line ie A-1 B-2 C-5 D-4 E-3 (Which would be translated into going down A then B then E then D then C columns voters would have much more say in the group order they want their vote cast. I have no problems with group voting but the singular option of placing a “1” above the line that is the issue. It most certainly give favour to the registered part ticket. Another way of looking at it is each group is a “candidate” in compared to the lower-house and voters can vote the order of the group allocation.
I voted in a bust booth in London —- votes were being flown over on the Monday morning after ,but they phoned through the numbers of votes cast….
there was a heavy turn out from Southern Met seats?
whats the sorry in the Melbourne seat?
So the greens are hoping that their vote go down in West Mel, just wondering, why did they not give preference to DLP in front of LP, it seems logical, if they want the balance of power
As for the greens, they are a party that is to the left in the political spectum, and like one nation (far right) that demographic will max out at around 10% if the vote, so unless they move to a more center position (where labor is) they will offer no attration to voters, except as a protest vote
Melbcity…as of last night Thornley was 0.5% ahead with 80% counted, postal and prepolls are three quarters counted…it is very close…if Greens have a quota (still unsure about this) their flow-on will be crucial to him.
Mis-sorts?
Antony Green Says:
It’s a booth total discrepancy between primary votes and two-candidate preferred results. The official 2CP in each seat is done at the district level, not the booth level, so dicrepencies in the Booth 2CP total is irrelevant.
Thanks Antony
Even so, there are currently some rather large ones. I had set up my system to automatically count the Primary:TCP discrepancies on Saturday night, when they were large. In most seats, the diff is now less than 10, but in Albert Park, Benambra, Mill Park, Bundoora, Derrimut, Oakleigh, Ripon, Thomastown and Yan Yean, they range from the low hundreds to over 2,000 as of noon yesterday.
Well, there are two ways of looking at the Vic result for the Greens… you can see it as the maxing out of their/our vote, at the 10% magic ceiling, or it could be more a barometer that there was little mood for change in the electorate. Victoria is one of the rare states that has a functioning Labor Gov’t and a genuine alternative in the Baillieu Opposition. I can therefore understand the attitudes of voters not looking for what’s painted as ‘radical changes’… also I think perhaps the Labor campaign on preferences was underhanded and made the difference where it counted. Anyway, I choose to see it as the shoring up of our record in 2002 and possibly a good baseline for the future.
A quick note on the already much-noted optimism of Green commentators before a poll: you have to be optimistic to be in a minor party. For me at least any halt in the rise in Greens votes across the country is a disappointment because so far our history has been one of increases. There were some big predictions in the lead-up to the election, and I might add Bob Brown tried to hose them down a bit: “The over-excited pollsters should take a cold shower” or somesuch. Not always overly optimistic, but every now and then the bug marked ‘HOPE’ bites and you can’t help but dream. Ah well. 4 years to wait, then 🙂
In terms of the Greens, the ‘state to watch’ label can now be passed to NSW….. both of the old parties are a bit on the nose here. Orkopoulos, Debnam vs Debus etc. Absolute debacle. Look out for a POSSIBLE (don’t want to get too optimistic) Greens gain in inner Sydney, or otherwise seeing three of the Upper House ticket elected. This campaign will be big.
Geoff, you might find some of those are caused by them doing re-counts. I think the mis-sorts is a calculated value. Trying to automate feeds from electoral comissions after an election can always be messy as numbers erratically go up and down as they remove totals before re-entering
Southern metropolitan is very tight. If you only count ticket votes, and locked in BTL votes (i.e. first 3 cands on Lib ticket, 2 on ALP ticket and 1 on Green tiucket). Labor is 2810 short of a quota, Greens 672, LIB 3226. Labor’s leads over Liberal just 416. If you include in home party BTLs, then the Greens reach their quota, Labor in 1977 short and Liberal 3225, Labor’s lead over Liberal 633. At this point, there would still be 4311 BTL votes floating around. 1005 of these are Democrat BTL, 1727 with People Power, 828 Family First, 306 Group C, 239 Ungrouped, 206 DLP.
On these figures, Labor’s position might be slightly strengthened by the Greens approaching the quota on BTL votes, which means when the Democrat ticket is distributed, the small Green surplus released would help Labor. But the total counted in South Metropolitan is currently the lowest. If the Liberal vote increases relative to Labor and the Greens on postals, absent and early votes, then this could be extremely tight for Evan Thornley’s chances of winning the final seat.
Yes…. they began taking away votes on Tuesday night with the re-checks, but I don’t think this is related to that. Usually with the re-checks they temporarily took away the entire “Ordinary”, so the discrepancy was briefly in the tens of thousands. The Albert Park discrepancy has been around for some days, I noticed it early because it is always on the screen at the left-hand end of my spreadsheet. I didn’t look as closely at the others.
Where the discrepancy is large, it seems to arise a from only one or two booths. In Albert Park, it is at Elwood North, for instance. Most booths have a zero discrepancy. The “TCP counted” is never larger than the “Primary counted”.
I think you have to assume that most of the voters voting below the line will stay within the group associated with their first preference. One advantage of running five candidates even though you are not going to ever win five. Its the smaller parties below the line that concern me. I haven’t checked the latest rules but some rules allow the exhaust votes to up the value of the votes that express a continuing preferences. I know this is the case in the surplus calculation. In an exclusion this would not be the case and the value of the vote will be excluded.
Yes anything under 0.5% has to be considered close
I think Labor has the advantage. Similar concerns in Western Victoria but in this case it is a question of how many green BTL votes will exhaust and how many carry on to Labor. Again Labor has an advantage and were in latest votes creeping be it slowly ahead.
Do we know if the 7000 postal/prepoll votes have been counted and were did they fall. Again we are really working in the dark not having detailed breakdown of what in and what’s waiting to be counted. there is much that could be improved with the VEC reporting that’s for sure. It is not open and is not transparent. Scrutineers are also reporting problems with the lack of information.
The web site is still reporting the same number of booths for the upperhouse counted as was teh case on Staurday night yets teh lwoer hosue is all in. I have lost confidence in the VEC totally
If you assume that the BTL vote is lcoked in and travels in teh same direction the ALP is 3000 votes ahead of the combined FF and Liberal vote.
As of 5:ooPM last night the results were
A, FAMILY FIRST, 5385, 828, 6213
B, PEOPLE POWER, 2272, 1727, 3999
C, Group C, 812, 306, 1118
D, LIBERAL, 131704, 4384, 136088
E, DEMOCRATS, 3887, 1005, 4892
F, D.L.P. – DEMOCRATIC LABOR PARTY, 2863, 206, 3069
G, AUSTRALIAN GREENS, 38831, 6538, 45369
H, AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY, 88916, 3987, 92903
Total, , 274670, 18981, 293651
, , 66.41%, 4.59%, 71.00%
, , , , 413587
They need to provide
1. the total number of Postals Votes issued. (That should be known on the Friday before the election.
2. The total number of pr-poll votes issued and received. (You can not take them away so the two should balance. They should have known the total number again on Friday night. These votes have already been checked and marked off the roll.
3. The total number of votes issued at the polling place on Saturday (This should have been reported on Saturday night and balanced with the number of ballot papers printed and delivered to each polling place)
4. The total number of absentee votes issued (The preliminary figure should have been reported on Saturday Night or Sunday at the latest. These need to be verified and cross checked with the role but there should be a record of the total number of votes in the system at any one time.
5 Postal returned closed on Monday and the VEC should know a) how many were issued and how many returned.
Come Tuesday they should have a full house minus overseas/interstate ballots (If any outstanding)
Armed with this information and an idea of the above the line and BTL first preferences ideally should tally once postal votes have been checked off and opened. (As I understand they were checking off the postals as and when they were returned. Absentee votes take a little longer.)
If they published this information and they were reporting online what stage they are at and what is still outstanding you would have a much better and clearer picture of where they are at. Once they have established a total number issued they should be able to proceed to recheck and data-entry of the BTL data. Above the line just needs manual counting.
Scrutineers should have an idea of how many BTL ballots exhaust and how many follow the general thrust and direction of the tickets. (Unfortunately we do not have this information as yet). Depending on the inbuilt bias in the BTL ballot bundles (ie Polling place versus Postal early returns and Postal late returns) we should just like looking at polling place data (Which is not available for the upper-house) be able to form a good judgement father say 10% of the BTL data being keyed in. In past AEC elections and Local Government elections the preference data was made available to scrutineers and forwarded on for analysis. Mr Tully has indicated that this information will not be available to scrutineers. Quite extraordinary really.
We are left in the dark. The closer it looks I am sure the main players will be asking for much more information and Mr Tully will have to reconsider his poorly made decision if he wants his contract renewed.
Some of the data is already available ready to go (ie the e-voting system data that the VEC has already counted (prior to the close of Saturdays poll)
10% should be a reasonable sample and when checked off against the subsequent 10% by the time we reach 30% a clear idea of the result will begin to take form. Just like a polaroid photo waiting to develop in our hands.
Given that the last 2 elections have been Labor’s two highest record votes in Victoria, as I understand it, then this would seem to augur well for the Greens’ long-terms prospects in the inner-city. When eventually, as it inevitably will, the pendulum swings back to the Coalition then those seats will become easier to win for the Greens. Assuming the Green vote stays constant, if you take 5% off the Labor vote and give it to the Coalition, then the Greens win Melbourne.
Not much consolation right now perhaps, but a reason for optimism if you’re a Green.
11:05 UPDATE RESULTS: Thornley still showing a notional 3000 votes ahead of the Liberal+FF vote. No idea of what has been counted and whaty is still wating to be counted. Spoke to scrutineers and they are being left in the dark also. Does not look like the 7000 Caulfield votes are yet in. 71% of the enrolled vote conted. Who knows how many votes have been received back all together. the 71% doesa not included repoirted informals.
Southern Metro Stats. (11:05AM 30 November 2006)
Recroded to date
Total Enrolled. 413587
Total Formal : 293634 (71% of enrollment))
Quota:48940
Four Quotas accounted for ALP 1 LIb 2 Green 1.
At end of notional count I have
ALP Thornley on 50413
LIB Southwick on 38190
FF MsSwiney on 9271
All others either elected of excluded.
Every vote added to the count increased the quota and leave 1/3 on the table at the end of the count. To make up ground you would need what 9,000 votes. Thornley clearly home. The BTL can not back that much difference. There would have to be a lot of wrong votes on the wrong piles. New votes can not make up ground here and I doubt that many will exhaust or leave the main tickets.
Apologies for delays moderating comments – I’m on the road at the moment. Those who have been following this thread carefully are invited to take another look at comments from the past two days to see what they’ve missed.
I think this is one count MelbCity where you need to worry about the above and below the lines. On the 11am count today, I’ve taken all the Labor, Liberal and Green votes as a group total, but broken down all other groups into ticket and BTL votes. After the election of the Green, and with a quota of 48,979, Labor ends up on about 47,283, Liberal 46,355, Labor ahead by 928, but not having allocated around 4,300 below the line votes. At the moment, the guaranteed preferences from tickets don’t get Labor over the line. If the Liberal vote does increase in relation to the Labor and Green votes among the declaration votes to be counted, then this contest is extremely tight.
Andrew, you are wrong about the inner city.
If you take 5% of the ALP vote and give it to the Liberals in the inner-city, then in most cases the Liberals will outpoll the Greens (particularly when you consider that anecdotal evidence suggests a small portion of the Greens’ primary vote are in fact disaffected Liberals who will return to the Libs pile when they get their act together at the State level).
If those two events occur, then in most cases the Liberals will pull ahead of the Greens, meaning the two-party preferred race will return to Labor Vs. Liberals, and Green preferences will push Labor over the line.
Oh, though the above analysis ignores the point that the more BTL’s that flow to the Greens, the more Green ticket votes end up in the Green surplus which helps Labor. The closer the Greens are to a full quota thanks to BTL votes, the more ticket votes flow to Labor as preferences when the Green is elected on Democrat preferences. However, if any of the city regions are going to see declaration votes favour the Liberals, it will be South Metropolitan where they have the most lower house. If the Liberal vote increases in proportion to the Labor and Green vote, the gap on the final seat narrows in this seat.
Well yes, good point. But presumably if Vic Labor was in a downswing and on the nose, more like Labor in NSW, then the Greens would pick up a chunk of disaffected Labor voters who are currently happy enough with Bracks.
It’s all a bit speculative and yes, the Greens would have to stay ahead of the Libs, but I’m sure it would assist the Greens overall in the inner-city seats.
Still every new vote on the table adds to the quta. At first I asked myself where did you get your quota then I remembered I am not counting the sole independent. I might create a split ticket for him to account for his vote and nulllify his vote.
If every new vote adds to the quota and there is only two quota’s left on the table towards the end. As long as the Green cross the line fouth its a race between Southwick and Thornley. Southwick in theory collects the FF vote. Above the line filter though the quotas already counted pushing up the quota on the way. The question I have is how many of the 7000 If you take into account the segmentation which I disagree with teh below the line vote retains power when abosrb into the above the line flow (ie the beow teh line votes for the for candidates eleceted earlier on quota they increase the value of the major party vote as teh surplus id calcualted by dividing the number of balot papers and not based on the value of each vote. (An issue I have already raised elsewhere in discussion) Segmentation helps who ever is leading and disavantages the party seeking to catch up. Every time you vote BTL and then transit via a candidate about to be elected you vote adds to the power of thier ticket. The Greens being elected fourth on a defered count means the ALP benefit the most from this in this count.
I don’t see Thornley losing out in the count unless there is a lot of votes miscounted. But then this is the VEC and bundles have been known to appear from nowhere. and we have no real idea of whats out there with data undisclosed and the full number of ballots issued unknown.
The gap between ticket and BTL votes is highest for Labor and the Greens overall, it is an ‘broad left’ vote selecting individual candidates from the Labor/Green pool according to personal preference. Thornley is the type of candidate who would deal well out of these voters.
There is some discussion about the ALP’s dominance in state elections, particularly in Victoria, which was once regarded as the jewel in the Liberal crown. The 27 years of Liberal rule from 1955 to 1982 are the genesis of both this claim and the present view of Labor Governments as some sort of aberration. On the contrary, Victoria. has been a natural Labor state for more than 50 years. This truth has been disguised by the consequences of the Great Labor Split of 1955.
That period of Liberal rule is largely explained by the DLP voters who gave their second preferences to the Liberal Party. The combined Labor percentage vote (i.e. ALP and DLP) versus the combined Liberal Party and National Party percentage vote at state elections since 1955 has been 45.2-47.3 (1955), 52.1-46.5 (1958), 55.5-43.6 (1961), 51.2-48.4 (1964), 52.2-46.2 (1967), 54.7-43.1 (1970), 49.4-48.3 (1973), 45.0-52.9 (1976, when the DLP did not contest a number of seats in order to punish the Liberals for breaking their 1973 promise to introduce proportional representation for the Legislative Council).
The DLP disbanded in 1978 (though some members did not accept that decision and are still contesting elections), and the Democrats came into existence before the next election, so the figures are not so clear at 45.7-47.1 in 1979. Even though the 1955 figures show both Labor parties below the Liberal Party and the then Country Party vote, I think that if there had been no split the Labor vote would have been higher.
These results suggest that if there had been no split, Labor would have governed Victoria from 1952 to 1976. This would have meant 45 years of Labor Governments compared with 13 years of Liberal Governments by the next election.
The modern Labor Party will not make the mistakes of the past and Liberal supporters seem unable to understand why they lost, so we are therefore likely to enjoy many more years of Labor Governments.
Antont… Havce you looked at Northen Metropolitan lately… Have another look
False alaem someone told me it was a lot closer then it is… I think it is as safe Green win… Not sure where they got their data from but I have the Greens cossing the line above 17%… Family First is not even distributed. The ALP handed out sectional HTV cards to various community memebers. Good strategy.
I think you are over-confident about Southern Metro being a Labor win on the last seat. Labor plus the available ticket votes don’t add to two quotas. I think that is more reliable way to view a tight contest than just treating all BTL votes as ticket votes. There are 1,000 BTL votes with DLP and FF, but 2000 with PP, Ind and DEM. Based on ticket votes alone, Labor is only 700 ahead of the Liberal. If the Liberal Party can wipe out that lead on the votes to be counted (entirely possible), then Labor only wins the final seat on below the line votes. The count in Southern Met has bobbed up and down for two days now and the Libs keep losing a small number of votes. I reckon that the Labor Party is busy scrutineering to shore up their primary vote.
Though if lots of BTL’s leak to the Greens it helps Labor, as it ensures that when the Democrat preferences are distributed and elect the Green, the maximum number of ticket votes end up n the small Green surplus.
True the DLP/ALP split has a profound effect but the DLP as it currently stands still has a core 2.5% of the vote. I am not sure exactly why I assume it is a core catholic vote in there somewhere. But it is consistent election after election. It is not a mistaken identity issue as some here have tried to assert. It matches the sentate vote like a glove.
I agree with your 5.22 message rather than your 4.56. It is true, Labor and Greens have lost ground (0.64%, and 0.17% of the vote respectively, and the DLP and Liberals have improved their position since Saturday night.
I suspect that your informant had been impressed by the fact that Greg Barber (Greens) was now below a quota, whereas he’d been either over or within a handful of votes (stray Labor BTLs would probably have beeen enough, earlier in the count). Your informant may also have confused the fate of People Power votes. Their primaries (1.43%) go to the DLP, but PP were boosted by an early elimination of the Democrats whose preference sequence was PP then Greens.
The Democrats 1.14% gives the Greens a very solid margin. If the Democrats had favoured the DLP over the Greens, it would have probably given the DLP the final seat, in a very tight finish.
Since there’s been three or four extras comments on this thread while I was tortuously preparing my 5.39, can I clarify by saying I’m responding to MelbCity’s comments about Northern Metro?
On North Metro, the problem is a DLP win requires all preferences to follow the ticket. Any leakage of BTL or exhaustions of BTL gets the Greens over the lune.
In the inner city discontent with Labor would move some votes to the Greens, some from the normal swinging vote some from disaffected Labor voters.
In such a situation the Greens could run a “a vote for the Libs is a vote for Labor” campaign in the inner city.
5pm update – Liberals win final seat in South Metro
Mind you, only by about 114 votes.
Latest update from the VEC:
The ALP now has a 19 vote lead in Ferntree Gully(2PP).
They also lead by 138 votes(2PP) in Mt Waverley, and over 400 votes in Gembrook(2PP), after the latest counting.
The Libs ahead by more than 100 in Kilsyth.
If these results hold, Bracks ends up with 56 seats, and a majority of 24.
I won’t even attempt to look at the Upper House results!
Cheers,
EVAN
Is the dream over? No chance of the DLP getting over the line?
I just did a run on Southern Metro based on today’s 5:00PM data and for the first time I had Southwick elected. I will need to double check my data.. Could this be the 7000 votes counted…
Antony What do you have?