Photo finishes (lower house) – take two

NOTE: I’m reposting this in the hope the thread in the hope it might be used specifically for commenting on the results. More general discussion can be directed to the other threads.

EXPLANATORY NOTE: Assuming no late-count surprises (which do happen), Labor needs to win four out of these five to be in a position to form a majority if John Bowler and Carol Adams support them. Morley might be a wild card, as it is probable that absent, pre-poll and postal preferences are behaving differently to the booth votes.

PUBLISHED
LATEST
ALP LIB Total ALP LIB Total
Riverton 8002 8034 16036 9247 9297 18544
Wanneroo 7299 7293 14592 10044* 10170* 20214
Albany 8182 8065 16247 9169 9096 18265
Forrestfield 8177 7935 16112 9307 9192 18499
Collie-Preston 8299 7883 16182 9499* 9120* 18619
* Projected vote used as two-party count progress is significantly behind primary count

Tuesday 11pm. The West Australian provides “how the parties are tallying the votes” figures from both parties. Shtuwang’s figures are the Labor ones: the Liberals think themselves 99 rather than 73 behind in Albany, 112 rather than 115 behind in Forrestfield, 29 rather than 50 ahead in Riverton and 89 rather than 93 ahead in Wanneroo. Liberals only 20 votes behind in Alfred Cove.

Tuesday 6.30pm. More count updates from Shtuwang included in the table above (the ones without asterisks). The Liberal lead in Morley has narrowed from 523 to 396 since the close of count on Saturday.

Tuesday 5pm. Shtuwang in comments says Labor leads by 151 (8673 to 8522) in Forrestfield, although this doesn’t account for the 18,444 primary votes in the count.

Tuesday 4pm. The trend seems to be running to Labor in Riverton and to Liberal elsewhere, although progress is painfully slow. Labor has had a very bad batch of 285 votes in Forrestfield go 134 Liberal and 77 Labor on the primary vote – I have their lead at 186, but apparently it’s narrower than that. The addition of 246 votes in Riverton gives McRae 116 primary votes against 90 for Nahan. My preference calculation gives Labor a slight lead, but my sources tell me they are in fact 50 votes behind. Only 156 votes added in Albany, producing essentially no change. 277 votes in Wanneroo include 134 Liberal and 99 Labor: Liberal candidate Paul Miles all but claimed victory today. Labor leads by 379 in Collie-Preston. For some reason a lot of seats have reset their absent counts to zero and started again: where applicable I am using the older figures. I am told rechecking of ballot booth votes will not be conducted until the weekend, whereas it is normally the first order of business.

Tuesday 2am. The West Australian reports a “notional two-party preferred count (which the WAEC apparently isn’t providing us with) shows Labor 57 votes behind in Wanneroo, 111 ahead in Albany, 165 ahead in Forrestfield and literally dead level in Riverton.

Monday 11pm. I’ve changed my way of doing this, so the results have been knocked about a little. To clarify: the columns on the left show the notional two-party counts from the close of election night, which disappointingly will not be further updated by the WAEC. The columns on the right convert the latest figures using the preference ratios from the notional count, notwithstanding that these might not be entirely accurate. Changes in Riverton since election night: Labor down 0.11 per cent to 40.18 per cent; Liberal down 0.19 per cent to 41.53 per cent; Greens up 0.21 per cent to 10.24 per cent.

Monday 4.30pm. 807 new votes in Wanneroo break almost exactly evenly; 619 votes in Collie-Preston narrow the margin by about 35 votes.

1.30pm Monday. New primary votes added (table above not updated). In Riverton, 603 votes likely to split 312-291 to Labor. In Wanneroo, 837 votes to split about 460-413 to Liberal; in Albany, 337 votes to split 177-160 to Liberal; in Forrestfield, 391 votes to split 208-183 to Liberal.

3pm Sunday. This post will be used to follow developments in the late count. Labor can still form a minority government if it wins four out of the above five seats, remembering that in 2005 they generally did about 2 per cent worse on absent and postal votes than on booth votes. Going on the 2005 result we could expect each to seat to have about 400 postal and 2000 absent votes outstanding, although I hear there was an unusually high number of absent votes due to confusion over the new boundaries.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

602 comments on “Photo finishes (lower house) – take two”

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  1. The WAEC site is only updating Primaries, not its notional distribution.

    On the basis of how the primaries are going you may be right. Wanneroo has firmed for Libs and vice versa for Riverton, unless green preferences are radically different to last time.

  2. Considering that the area Riverton lost in the redistro was hardcore Labor, you would have thought the absentee votes would fall Labor (people in the Cannington area voting at Cannington booths like normal, but actually being in Riverton electorate)? Does that logically make sense? 🙂

  3. I’ve updated the table now, creating a 2PP count arrived at by applying the ratio from the notional count to the new primary votes. It still has Labor behind in Riverton, by 11 rather than 32 votes.

  4. So it is projecting the Libs winning Wanneroo and Riverton with Labor winning Albany and Forrestfield and most likely Collie-Preston. Seems a reasonable prediction.

  5. Notional 2PP pages say: THE NOTIONAL DISTRIBUTION RESULT IS INDICATIVE OF THE COUNT THAT WAS DONE ON POLLING DAY. THIS RESULT WILL NOT CHANGE UNTIL THE FULL DISTRIBUTION IS COMPLETED.

    So I guess we’re flying blind with preferences on newly added votes.

  6. William,
    Are you confident that the ALP can be ruled out in Morley, given the unpredictability of preference flows from D’Orazio voters?

  7. Forrestfield takes in quite a bit of Sheila McHales old Kenwick seat, which would account for the good Labor Vote, plus I think it covers the Federal Seat of Hasluck.

  8. So am I right in thinking 3 of the Independents are pro Libs which means Labor would only have a chance of support from the Kalgoolie bloke?

  9. Frank barely 60% has been counted there.

    What we need from William is a list of definite gains form all the parties. Then work on the undecideds.

  10. I still think Northwest looks strange, unless there’s been a large scale defection of Nats voters to Labor. Was there any dispute between the two conservative parties up there?

  11. Unless every Nat voter there put Labor second against the HTV card then how can Labor have won?

    North West is anybodies guess, Sweetman may yet pick up the seat or if the Nats overtake the Libs the Nats could win it.

  12. Just on North West – i think Glen has a point.

    I was just crunching some numbers on it… two interesting points.

    First, the vote pre-today was only 60%. They have added about 4.5%…. the result has been to cut The ALP primary vote lead by nearly 1 ppt.

    The notional 2pp result is old but lets use as a guide – it has ALP up about 4pt.

    But given the rate at which the primary is changing that is not safe. All depends on what the makeup of that last 35 percent is.

    Second point, at the moment the Libs lead the nats by only couple hundred votes.

    Apparently the preferencing from nats to libs is not as strong as normal… but what if nats finish above libs… the libs preferencing to nats will be very very strong…. under that scenario nats me even get the seat

  13. There’d have to be a very big swing to Steve Thomas on what remains for Mick Murray to lose Collie-Preston.

    If William’s estimated figures prove accurate, Riverton is going to a recount.

    Albany and Forrestfield looking OK for Labor at this stage, Wanneroo probably less so. And who knows what will happen in Morley.

    At this early stage, I may have to revise my figures upwards to 28 seats for Labor…that would make a Liberal minority government rather too unstable for my liking.

  14. Grylls could well be adding another MP to his team 10pse as you have correctly noted. If the Nats arent preferences the Libs, the Libs surely will have the Nats as their 1st preference and hence the Nats would easily gain the seat.

  15. Alfred Cove will be won by Woolard if the greens directed to her. If the Greens directed to Labor, they’ll overtake her and her prefs will decide the winner (I assume most would be directed to the Liberals).

    Nedlands looks the same, although the Libs have a higher primary vote here and could probably fall over the line on leaked prefs even if the Greens directed to Walker.

  16. [North West is anybodies guess, Sweetman may yet pick up the seat or if the Nats overtake the Libs the Nats could win it.]

    On election night Stephen Smith said Labor was getting nearly half of the Nat preferences in North West. If that is the case, once you add in most of the Greens, votes Labor will be a over 50%.

  17. The Greens didnt direct to Woollard and their voters would be less likely to back her than the ALP even if they were told to. Simply if Woollard falls behind the ALP she’s done. But regardless the result the seat will assist Barnett form Government.

  18. I was scrutineering on the night in a safe Laborl seat. Basically, the WAEC’s staff are completely under-prepared. For instance, the primary vote in my booth changed 4 times and the booth staff were unsure about how to allocate preferences. At my booth, six Liberal votes were found in the Labor pile which is a bit worrying. Fortunately, at that point, the booth manager agreed to restart the entire count when myself and the other scrutineer became increasingly concerned about confusion. Other scrutineers have reported similar instances.

    Also, the WAEC appear unable/unprepared to deal with independents not doing as well as they though, namely, in Nedlands, where Walker was being distributed when in fact, Labor was coming second (which explains the early panic that Nedlands had been retained by the independent). I imagine similar messes are occuring in North West, Wanneroo etc. thereby slowing the count.

  19. “regardless the result the seat will assist Barnett form Government”

    Hmm.. I’m sure Barnett wants every seat he can get to give him greater leaverage in negotiations with the Nats, and greater stability in any possible government. And has Wollard pledged to support him anyway?

  20. On North West

    Just 64.39% has been counted, thus we have still a third of the count to come and the Nats are only 276 votes behind the Liberals, if they overtake them Grylls will have another bargaining chip to add to the table and Labor one less seat.

    The Nats could well gain this seat.

  21. 35 – I was scrutineering also at a marginal booth where 300 votes went ‘missing’. Turns out it was a miscount. The counters were more concerned abouit their pizza going cold than an actual result. Worrying

  22. 10pse @ 29, in the last 35% of votes – say 50% of those are Lib/Nat, so 17.5% of the total North West votes – you expect a +10% swing to the Nats?

  23. [The counters were more concerned abouit their pizza going cold than an actual result. Worrying]

    Well, at the very least whoever forms government should set up a committee review into the entire election process, with members from every party represented in parliament. The vote count screw ups on election night was a joke.

  24. I stand corrected Peter, but will they actually do what they are told?
    Will they naturally select the ALP second rather than the HTVs suggestion.

    Alfred Cove is 50-50 in my books.

  25. The Greens directing preferences to Independents shows that their politics is more about personality and retribution and completely lacks long term vision. They are way off-course if they seek to be a party of genuine influence.

  26. the vote counting on election night was ridiculous. Blind freddy would have been able to tell that there wasn’t going to be a 26% swing in a seat like Cannington. Yet that was reported and commented on.

  27. The unpreparedness of the WAEC was because the election was six months early, DUH. They can’t keep thousands of people on election standby for the whole parliamentary term. The solution to this is fixed terms, which is ALP policy and already in place in NSW and Vic.

  28. I dont think we can rule Morley out for Labor yet, those voting for D’Orazio on absentee and postal votes wont have had a how to vote card where many people who voted at the booths just followed his card that gave preferences to the Libs. Surely a good portion of the non booth voters gave their preference to Labor.

    But in any case, its looking much better for Labor to form a minority government with 28 seats with the 2 Labor leaning independents.

    I’m confident Labor will win Collie-Preston, Forrestfield and Albany and will lose Wanneroo. Riverton is going to make or break the Labor Party. If they win that, I think they will hold on to government.

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