Saturday, September 11
As you may have noticed, I have kind of dropped the ball on following the late Senate count – normally a richly absorbing pastime in the post-election dead zone, but in the past three weeks there have been bigger fish to fry than the precise make-up of a Senate that will clearly have the Greens holding the balance of power. The AEC has pushed the button on the counts in Queensland (three LNP, two Labor, one Greens) and the ACT (one Labor, one Liberal), with the others presumably to follow shortly. There has never been any doubt about New South Wales (two Liberal and one National, two Labor, one Greens), Western Australia (three Liberal, two Labor, one Greens), Tasmania (three Labor, two Liberal, one Greens) and the Northern Territory (one Labor, one Country Liberal Party). Doubt has also faded about the remainder:
Victoria. What at first appeared the quirky prospect of win for DLP candidate John Madigan has firmed. I personally anticipated the resources of incumbency might mean Family First would perform strongly on declaration votes, but they have actually gone backwards: according to the ABC projection, a 0.12 per cent deficit against the DLP at the revelant point in the count on election night has actually widened to 0.22 per cent. The Coalition have also failed to make up the ground needed to overtake the DLP at the penultimate count, with the gap now at an unassailable 0.72 per cent. That leaves us looking at a result of two Labor, one Liberal and one Nationals, one Greens and one DLP.
South Australia. There was briefly the prospect a week ago of an upset win by Bob Day of Family First at the expense of third Liberal candidate David Fawcett, but we now appear to be looking at a vanilla-flavoured three Liberal, two Labor and one Greens result. At the second last count, the ABC computer projects Fawcett to be on 8.89 per cent against 8.16 per cent for Day. With Day excluded, Family First and other right-wing preferences put Fawcett well ahead of the third Labor candidate.
There is thus little doubt that the newly elected Senators will include 18 from the Coalition, (12 Liberal, two Nationals, three Liberal National Party and one Country Liberal Party), 15 from Labor, six from the Greens and one DLP. These will join the state Senators whose terms began following the 2007 election – 16 Labor, 16 Coalition (14 Liberals and two Nationals), three Greens and Nick Xenophon – for a total result of 34 Coalition (26 Liberal, four Nationals, another three from the Liberal National Party including two who will sit with the Liberals and one who will sit with the Nationals, and one Country Liberal Party who sits with the Nationals), 31 Labor, nine Greens, one DLP and Nick Xenophon.
Monday, August 23
Kevin Bonham and GhostWhoVotes in comments note my assessment of Tasmania was mistaken, as it wrongly allocated Liberal preferences to the Greens over Labor like they normally would. There is in fact little doubt the final result will be three Labor, two Liberal and one Greens, meaning the defeat of Liberal incumbent Guy Barnett by Labor’s Lisa Singh, a former state government minister who lost her seat in Denison at the March state election.
Saturday, August 21
A brief and bleary summary of the Senate situation, based on a quick and dirty review of Antony Green’s projections. This will be progressively updated as further results come to hand. The Greens look good for a Senate seat from each state and will hold an unassailable balance-of-power position in the Senate. The best shot for a quirky result is Victoria where the Democratic Labor Party are currently in the hunt – as is incumbent Steve Fielding, despite reports to the contrary.
New South Wales. This looks like a reasonably straightforward result of three Coalition and two Labor, with Lee Rhiannon of the Greens on a 2.5 per cent lead over the third Labor candidate for the final place.
Victoria. It is widely being reported that Steve Fielding has lost his seat, based on assessments of Antony Green’s projection that went no deeper than the predicted final result. The remarkable fact of said projection is the win for the Democratic Labor Party, who would be advised not to count their chickens. Four counts earlier, the DLP emerge ahead of Steve Fielding by the narrowest of margins, resulting in the former receiving the latter’s preferences and vice-versa. The DLP then emerges ahead of the third Coalition candidate and wins the seat on their third preferences, but it could just as easily be fielding who does this. Alternatively, neither could win – Fielding or the DLP could fail to get ahead of the third Coalition candidate, who might end up taking the seat instead. Or they could get ahead, but then fall short of overtaking Labor in the final count, so that Labor wins the seat.
Queensland. Three Liberal National, two Labor, one Greens.
Western Australia. A delightfully straightforward result, with the Liberals just over three quotas, Labor just over two (a remarkably low 29.8 per cent) and the Greens almost bang on one.
South Australia. Bob Day of Family First looks like he’s come close to overtaking the third Liberal candidate, but is currently 0.4 per cent behind and likely to lose ground in late counting. That being so, the final seat looks set go to the third Liberal, who looks about 3 per cent ahead of third Labor. Result: three Liberal, two Labor, one Greens.
Tasmania. Not only has Christine Milne been easily re-elected for the Greens, the current ABC projection has their second candidate just 1 per cent short of overtaking the Liberals at the second last count, and then winning the seat at the expense of a third Labor candidate. The exclusion of the second Green instead delivers the latter a narrow win over the third Liberal candidate. However, the unusually high number of below-the-line votes in Tasmania might makes things unpredictable. Realistically, the contest is between Labor and the Liberals to take a third seat, with the former slightly ahead.
The territories. Liberal Gary Humphries has only just cleared a quota (one third) in the ACT, but will be made comfortable by Democrats preference and a high rate of leakage. Equally, Labor wasn’t too far over a quota in the Northern Territory.
William, considering the only remaining ‘in doubt’ election is in the Vic Senate, can you please put this thread (or a new one confined to Vic Senate) on the front page? thanks
Democracy@Work – it is simply a matter of fact that even if the Democrats had preferenced the Greens ahead of Family First in Victoria in 2004, the Greens would still not have won the seat. That doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do, but it didn’t make any difference to the final outcome. If Labor had preferenced the Greens ahead of Family First, the Greens would have won. It is fairly straightforward.
Whilst it was obviously highly annoying to the Greens at the time (and subsequently become annoying for virtually everyone else once it became apparent how completely out of his depth Steve Fielding was), I can understand why Labor would have thought it seemed like a good, low risk deal at the time. There were no indications that Family First were likely to poll much more than 2% anywhere, other than South Australia, and prior to 2004 there wasn’t much thought given to the prospects of people being able to win a seat at a half-Senate election with only 2%. Plus Labor’s vote in Victoria was higher at the time the preference deal was made, only dropping in the final week with Latham’s mistakes.
The rationale for the Democrats’ two way ticket (which they still did in a few states this time, but not all) was to show even handedness between the two major parties. If people especially preferred one over the other, they could vote below the line. It is true that the Democrats effect this time (except for the atrocious ACT preference decision) was to feed their preferences to the Greens – I am not quite sure why you would think that’s a bad thing. It is basically the same position the Greens were in through the 1990s of feeding preferences to the Democrats.
As for your suggested system for an alternate way of counting Senate preferences (@48), I don’t believe it is fairer or more democratic at all. I remember you suggesting after the 2007 election that your ‘fairer’ way of counting would have meant the Greens won the last seat in Qld, rather than the Labor party – much as I would have preferred that outcome, there was no way it was a ‘fairer’ interpretation of the way people voted and how the various party’s chose to direct their preferences. But as I recall at the time, extended efforts to illustrate that didn’t shift your view once inch, so I’m not going to bother arguing with you about again here.
There has been some small progress in the Senate counts. The only ones I’m paying close attention to are ACT (just to see if the Libs do need to rely on preferences – they are certain to win the final seat), NSW (which the Greens should win but just to make sure Labor doesn’t make up the extra 1 and a bit per cent needed to catch the Greens after the final exclusion) and Victoria (which as bomlington said @51, is the only one where significant uncertainty remains).
ACT: With 84.77% now counted, the Liberals are on 33.69%, just above the 33.33% mark to win the seat in their own right. This has trended slightly upwards since last week.
NSW: With 83.6% now counted, using Antony Green’s Senate calculator, the Greens are on 1.0744 quotes to Labor’s 0.9255 quotas after the final exclusion, or a lead of 78 074 votes. This is a slightly larger lead for the Greens than it was when the count was just below the 83.0% mark.
VIC: With 81.56% of the vote counted, using Antony Green’s Senate calculator (which won’t be 100 per cent accurate due to uncertainties over where preferences will go with the Below the Lines votes, but should be close for it not to matter unless the relevant margins get down under 100 or so), the DLP lead Family Family first at the crucial exclusion (labelled Count 22 on Antony’s site) by 3973 votes, or 0.15%.
The DLP’s lead over Family First at this exclusion point was 2715 after 80.58% of the vote had been counted, so they’ve gained over 1000 votes on Family First with the last 1 per cent of the count.
The other crucial point is the gap between the DLP and the 3rd Lib (Julian McGauran) at the time of the very last exclusion. Currently, Green’s calculator puts the DLP 15 870 votes ahead of the Libs (or 0.57%). This is up very slightly from when the 80.58% of the vote had been counted, when the gap was at 15 587.
The outside chance of Labor being in the mix for the final seat remains very outside, when them still falling 1.15% of the vote short after the final exclusion. Given that there a lot of postals (which should favour both majors in relation to all the other parties) and absentees (which should favour the Greens, and to a lesser extent Labor), I still wouldn’t totally rule out the ALP.
The much bigger chance is that the Libs will make up the 0.6% needed to catch the DLP (or Family First, if the earlier exclusion ends up that way) on postals and pre-polls.
Note that I’ve made this post easier to access by changing the time stamp, which returns it to the front page.
Many thanks again, Andrew and William.
I think that a rule that if you did not get your deposit back (4% for you and/or your group) and enough others did then you are excluded after before you can get preferences to pile up upon you has merit but it would also disadvantage segments of voters divided between parties like the Christian parties (FF, DLP, CDP, etc).
Bartlett
[Democracy@Work – it is simply a matter of fact that even if the Democrats had preferenced the Greens ahead of Family First in Victoria in 2004]
You should take another look at the Queensland 2007 vote (Your are from Queensland are you not?) In 2007 the Greens should have won a Senate seat. They only failed to do so because the flaw in the way the count the senate vote and distribute the preferences.
Again the Greens failed to win a Senate seat in Victoria because under Latham (Remember him) they fell below the 39% threshold and only received 9%. family first picked up all Th minor party preferences including the Democrats which you were associated with if I recall before your became a Green opportunities
Unlike your last prediction the next Senate election will be a double dissolution.
Based on existing data if a double was held in Victoria two weeks ago then the following candidates would have been elected
Candidate group_name
CARR, Kim John Australian Labor Party
RONALDSON, Michael Liberal
DI NATALE, Richard Australian Greens
CONROY, Stephen Michael Australian Labor Party
McKENZIE, Bridget Liberal
THOW, Antony Australian Labor Party
McGAURAN, Julian Liberal
LEWIS, Marg Australian Labor Party
JENNISON, Susan Liberal
FREEMAN, Shelly Australian Labor Party
FIELDING, Steven Family First
RICE, Janet Australian Greens
[Victoria. It is widely being reported that Steve Fielding has lost his seat, based on assessments of Antony Green’s projection that went no deeper than the predicted final result. The remarkable fact of said projection is the win for the Democratic Labor Party, who would be advised not to count their chickens. Four counts earlier, the DLP emerge ahead of Steve Fielding by the narrowest of margins, resulting in the former receiving the latter’s preferences and vice-versa. The DLP then emerges ahead of the third Coalition candidate and wins the seat on their third preferences, but it could just as easily be fielding who does this. Alternatively, neither could win – Fielding or the DLP could fail to get ahead of the third Coalition candidate, who might end up taking the seat instead. Or they could get ahead, but then fall short of overtaking Labor in the final count, so that Labor wins the seat.]
What’s missing in Williams assessment is the extent of the “Narrowest” of margins. (Over 3,000 votes latest GTV count) Most BTL voters remain within the group of their main choice and somehow I do not see too many Christian fellowship breaking congregation or the general ticket. That’s generally a Green domain. Many get locked up in the majors ticket holding in there until they are distributed. McGauran is not in a winning position as there is 20,000 votes difference between him and FF/DLP votes both who pickup the flow on when the Sex party is excluded. So Williams hopes of a close Senate election does not hold “holly” water or detailed scrutiny.
Victoria Senate FF vs DLP
Attention Andrew Crook
If you look at the 2007 results
http://results.aec.gov.au/13745/Website/SenateStateFirstPrefsByGroupByVoteType-13745-VIC.htm
You will note that the percentage split on Ordinary votes compared to Absentee FF goes backwards from 2.63 to 2.45 DLP increased their split from 1.01 to 1.40. Now in all honesty on what basis does William and Crikey claim FF will rise to the ascendancy or is this a scare tactics to try and sell Crikey subscriptions. 🙂
Much better if you write about the influence of the Sex Party ho favoured the DLP over FF at least your comments would have more relevance and less hype.
Lastest counting (As of this morning) has DLP(90966) 4,000 ahead of FF (86992) at the point of exclusion. The dlp apeaer to be notionally increasing their lead.
The difference between the DLP and Libs at the last exclusion has reduced from about 20,000 votes to about 15,000 votes over the past few days.
Still only up to 81.54% of ballots counted so a long way to go.
sorry, I meant 18,000 not 15,000 votes
Steve Fielding may or may not make it in Victoria.
Of more interest is that Bob Day of Family First in South Australia a few days ago was 3,000 votes behind the currently leading Liberal for the last Senate spot. He has progressively gained on the Liberal candidate over the past few days, and is now only 300 votes behind. If that trend continues (no reason to say why it shouldn’t) he is done and dusted.
Family First could still get two Senators up, although South Australia looks an awful lot more likely than Victoria.
Might need to take another look at your predictions, William!!
Very interesting politikal. FF could definitely do with a better public face than Fielding.
Democracy@work @57:
It is a simple fact that the Greens would have won a Senate seat in Victoria in 2004 had the ALP preferenced them ahead of Family First. I am sorry you don’t seem to have the capacity to understand it, but a simple glance at the Senate count for that seat will confirm this. I have never made any secret of the fact I was involved in the Democrats decision to do the same in 2004. I am simply indicating the straightforward fact that it did not make the difference in the Greens not winning the seat.
As I already said, we had a long exchange on one of the Crikey blogs about 2 years ago regarding your flawed understanding of the Qld 2007 Senate result. You didn’t change your mind then and you obviously aren’t going to change your mind now, so I am not really interested in repeating the same pointless exchange. Suffice to say, I do not believe there is a “flaw in the way they count the senate vote and distribute the preferences”. I can’t see how the method you suggest would be fairer. In as much as you can divine something like the voters’ ‘intent’ through something as complicated as a the Senate counting process, I believe the current method for counting and distributing preferences is about as good as one could get. Given the preference decisions of the various candidates and parties on their Group Voting Tickets in 2007, the final result in Queensland accurately reflected the voters’ decisions. In any case, Labor won the final Queensland seat in 2007 ahead of the Greens because Pauline Hanson preferenced Labor ahead of the Greens (which she was entitled to do of course – somebody has to go ahead of the other under a compulsory preferential system.)
Thanks for pointing that out, politikal. I had stopped looking at the SA count ages ago. Once the Libs had got ahead of Family First I assumed they would keep pulling away.
On the latest count (after 82.57% counted), he’s actually pulled ahead of the Libs by 259 votes. SA is very much up in the air, along with Victoria.
On the VIC DLP vs FFP race
Is there, or is there not something screwy with the LNP vote in Vic? The AEC shows the “Unapportioned” for them as 21% of the total. The notes imply strongly that “unapportioned” is only BTL waiting to be allocated to the candidates. The 21% is unbelivable, I assume there are Ticket votes lurking in there? If they really are BTLs, then the wild cards among them will throw any notional distribution way out.
No party in other states show this anomally. In NSW the BTL averages only 9%- which is pretty normal
Victoria Senate
Latest counting now has the DLP 4,800 votes ahead of FF. The margins still going up not down. FF is and never has been in a position to win a Senate seat in Victoria.
The Below the line vote is unlikely to make any difference. It was a media furphy to suggest otherwise.
Geoff Best to look at this link
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/SenateStateFirstPrefsByVoteType-15508-VIC.htm
The flaw in the way the AEC count the election will not come into play in Victoria (This time) I have yet to undertake any analysis of the other states. But will once the AEC publish the BTL data files.
Andrew Bartlet
[I am not really interested in repeating the same pointless exchange. Suffice to say, I do not believe there is a “flaw in the way they count the senate vote and distribute the preferences”]
Its pretty simple. Votes from excluded candidates should be distributed as though that the excluded candidates had never stood. IE the vote is distributed according to the next available candidate. Clearly you do not understand ho the Senate vote is counted. Another way of testing the result is excused every candidate except the last 7 candidates left standing (3 ALP, 3 LNP and 1 GRN) and Larissa waters is elected. That tells you the flaw is in the method of distributing preferences. Ideally the result should not change.
The other test of apply the “Meek” method and again Larissa Waters is elected.
Little wonder why the QLD Greens are so ill informed. They do not know how to count or how the system should work. LOL
It is Surprising the media and this board has not been discussing the role and impact of the SEX party. They have outpolled the Democrats, FF and the DLP. In most cases they have delivered a win for the Greens and or other minor parties, In most cases they are eighth placed. This is a party that clearly is in a position to deliver the balance of power. This is just as frightening as GetUp as its policies and administration are not open or democratic.
Geoff, I am sure some – almost certainly a majority – of that 21% will be Above the Line votes that still haven’t been apportioned after the original election night count.
Whatever you reckon “democracy”ATwork. I’m not interested in juvenile name calling. My job for many years depended in part on knowing how Senate votes are counted. I know perfectly well how the system works. You clearly have another idea of how it “should” work, but it is not how it does work. I also think your suggested system is less fair and not very rational. You’re entitled to propose it, but it’s not how our electoral law works, and in my time on various committees looking at electoral laws, I’ve heard few people propose it. Given some of your ‘predictions’ on other threads about the close House of Reps contest, I have doubts you even understand basic maths terribly well. Anyway, feel free to keep ranting away – it just reminds me not to take anything you say seriously.
If the Australian Sex Party had preferenced to The Australian Fishing & Lifestyle Party ahead of the LNP in QLD, the result of the sixth QLD spot might also be different, according to current figures. http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/guide/sqld-results.htm
The AEC site indicates a bit over 2% more of the Senate vote has been counted today in NSW and Vic, but only a little bit more in the ACT. And as noted in a comment above, SA is also very much up in the air.
ACT: Only about 0.3% more of the vote counted today, with the Libs dropping slightly to 33.67%.
NSW: Now up to 85.64% of the vote counted, and the Greens gap over Labor for the last seat has increased by over 9000 – now standing at 87 386 votes (or 1.0812 of a quota to 0.9187).
VIC: Now up to 83.76%, and the DLP is increasing its lead at both of the crucial points in the count. They now lead Family First by 4587 – a gain of over 600 today – at that exclusion point, and lead the 3rd Liberal by 17 677, a gain of close to 1800 today.
SA: As mentioned above, with 85.04% the Family First candidate (Bob Day) is now 259 votes ahead of the 3rd Liberal (former MHR David Fawcett) in the contest for the final seat.
I haven’t been following the counts closely enough to know whether votes counted today came mostly from postals or absentees or pre-polls or ordinary votes. I’ll try to pay more attention to that, at least in Vic and SA.
Some of these seats will be decided by about 400-500 votes.
It looks like Vic result for last spot is either DLP or Labor. If Libs get ahead of DLP for the last elimination then DLP votes will elect Labor as they go to third Labor ahead of third Lib.
SA is going to be very close as noted above.
wakefield @ 75…that is not correct…Mcgauran the 3rd Lib/Nat ticket candidate gets the 13th preference of the DLP, while Thow the 3rd ALP candidate gets the 23rd preference.
[My job for many years depended in part on knowing how Senate votes are counted. I know perfectly well how the system works. ]
I do nto think you do kno how it works, that is the problem. If you did then you would understand and acknowldge the flaw in the ways the Senate vote is counted. Even the PRSA (Which I am a life member) understand this issue. Agsin try counting the Queensland 2007 elction again exclduing all candidates except the last seven remaining in the count. Your ill find that the Greens “Your new party” ishoudl have been elected., tehy were not elected because of teh bottomn of the deck dealing/segmentation distribution method. Read uop about the “Meek” method and the Wright System and you might learbn something. Good thing you were not elected to the seat of Brisbane. hey I am not happy about the Greens beining denied a seta when they should have been elected. I support Labor. BUT UNLIKE YOU, A GREEN CANDIDATE I AM VERY CONCERNED AT THE SERIOUS FLAW IN THE WAY THE VOTE IS COUNTED. IT UNDEMOCRATIC
[We’re still a chance, says Fielding camp]
Latest Senate results in Victoria show the widening gap is now over 4,8587 votes between FF (89313) and the DLP (93900). Hopeful thinking on behalf of Feilding and a media looking for stories and fabels. With over 83% enrolled counted based on the GTV preference allocations Fielding can not make up ground to surpus the DLP.
The Sex Party at the time of Fielding being eliminated has a value of 135727 votes. Fieldings votes flow to the DLP giving it the lead over th sex pafrty which then flows to the DLP puting them 17,666 votes ahead of the LNP thrid candidate. Julian McGauran loses out electing the DLP ahead of the ALP on the last sixth seat.
Western Australian Senate is looking to be intersting. I am interested in looking at a Major Party defered candidate election. Under this situtaion the distortion in the way the AEC counts the surplus transfer values cuts in and could deliver bonus votes inlationg the value of the party Ticket votes. In 2007 the Victorian Senate potentially could have elcted the Greens not on merit but as a result of the distorion in the way the vote is counted. Even Antony Green has confirmed this is the case. 🙂
bombinglion. The DLP preferences will be distributed BUT it does not matter what the DLP preference order is. Most of their votes come from other minor parties such as FF, Mayne the democrats etc. Each one travels in a different direction. They are all locked in and never go beyond the DLP
NSW Fiona NASH (Liberal/National) elected #5 is a candidate to also watch, The Liberal Party Ticket vote received at a fration valueis inflated disproportionally when transfered delivering a bonus derived disportionally from minor candidates votes.
Example: NSW Distortion in the way the senate vote is counted
THE LNP 3rd Senate seat is made up of 1473147 ticket votes valued at 0.36511 plus 202538 minor party votes at full value 1.0000
When calculating the Surplus transfer value using the AEC method the surplus is divided by 1675685 (Total ballot papers) even though the Ticket vote was one third the value of the minor party votes, all votes are now transfered at the same value.
The ticket vote has increased in value as a result.
76 – apologies for error. Reading lessons needed.
Thanks for the update , Andrew.
Wakefield The ALP will not win a third Senate seat in Victoria. It will be LNP:2, ALP:2, GRN:1, DLP: 1.
The Greens have fallen to just below quota and willl rely on preferences from one of the minor parts to cross the line. Any suggestion of a close contest is a pipe dream or media spin.
D@Work…tend to agree now…the early momentum the Libs had last week and earlier this week in overhauling the DLP at the last exclusion has now disappeared. The Libs are now sitting on 34.43%..would need to get to at least 34.9% to have any chance (assuming there is no dramatic collapse in the DLP/FF vote). Only about 5-6% of ballots to be counted now.
And the previous exclusion of FF (before the DLP) is an even greater certainty now.
Where did you get the info that the Greens had fallen below quota?
‘Democracy’@work – seeing you called Corangamite as “game over” in favour of the Liberals when they will probably fall at least 800 votes short, I don’t see any particular reason why I should pay much heed to your projections.
But as I said, you can hold your view about the way the Senate vote is counted, but it is counted according to the current electoral law. I understand the way it is counted because I follow it acccording to the current rules. You can keep suggesting different results under your personal fantasy rules, but a fantasy is all they will remain. I would rather stick with assessing the count according to the current law, rather than someone’s personal whim (especially when that whim results in a less fairer or representative outcome).
Anyway, the DLP continue to improve their position in Victoria – quite strongly in regards to Family First, and much less slowly compared to the 3rd Lib. Given the large number of votes still to be counted, it would be foolish to declare a certain winner at this stage, but obviously if counting trends keep flowing in favour of one candidate, they would have to be the favourite as things stand. (same with SA)
@bombinglion @86
The Greens in Victoria had been just below a quota, but at present they sit just above. I suspect it may still bounce around a bit, depending on whether further votes counted come from absentees or from postals (provisionals and prepolls are also currently a bit more favourable to the Greens, but not by very much).
At the time I called Corangamite Game over the information published by the AEC was clearly showing a win for the Liberal Party. Based on Williams feedback I went back and made adjustments to that claim.
If I recall Mr Bartlett was sure that this election was going to be a double dissolution. LOL Never was on the cards. BUT the next election will definitely be a double dissolution
Re Brisbane. The information provided by the AEC on the number of votes issued, returned and counted was misleading and incorrect, as a result this is hard to call.
I do except that my pre-election call on Melbourne was wrong. The Liberal vote went backwards from 2007 4-5% Attending the polling booths in Melbourne was one of the most gloomy times spent. The Greens ran a much better campaign then the ALP.
But I am pleased the Greens did not win in Sydney or Brisbane
How many years were you on the Electoral review committee and you never knew about the flaws in the way the vote is counted? I guess you were involved more in junkets overseas then review of the electoral procedures. I am pleased the democrats are no longer a force in Australian politics. (Although I still hold high respect for Lynn) Never agreed with their double sided BS ticket., as this your achievement? LOL
[(especially when that whim results in a less fairer or representative outcome).]
LOL Working again. In fact it is much more fair and reflect 9ive of the elcorate, Thats the main point of it. It demonstrates you have no idea of what your talking about. The greens were denied representation as a result of the flaw in the way the vote is counted, (I thought you were now a member of the Greens party). I believe in a one vopten one value electoral system. I most certainly do not support a system where the Party Ticket rate increases in value disportionately to its support. (Look at Antony Greens analysis confirming my analysis in Victoria) Anthony green never did a quality count in Queensland.
Again try re-counting counting the 2007 result with only the last 7 candidates remaining in the count. Redistribute preferences as though the other candidates had never stood. You can use existing count rules if your prefer, Net result is the Greens are elected to the sixth seat.
Now apply Meek. Do you know of the Meek method and whey it was developed? A reiterative counting system was never previously considered because of the time taken to recount the votes on every exclusion BUT with the use of computer assisted counting the results can be determined using a reiterative counting system in less then 3 hours following complete8ion of the data entry process.
I am happy to keep analyzing the current system, But part of the analysis is to compare the alternative counting systems to ensure that the outcome is in fact a true and correct refection of the voters choice.
Your in denial. The current system, is most certainly not more rerpresenative.
Here is the link to the Queensland Senate preference data file publised by the AEC
http://results.aec.gov.au/13745/Website/External/SenateStateBtlDownload-13745-QLD.zip
Try counting the vote, so your in a position to make an informed decison. I look forward to your analysis Andrew.
As I said above ‘democracy’ATwork, I am not interested in juvenile name calling. Nor am I interested in cheap, false smears.
There is no “flaw” in the way the Senate vote is counted. It’s counted according to the Electoral Act. If you think it’s flawed to run an election, including the count, according to the law, then you have as bad a grasp of language and logic as you appear to have with maths and spelling. I had this futile discussion with you on a Crikey blog after the last election. I am not going to waste my time again.
Your WRONG Mr Bartlett
[When people make a mistake, they should acknowledge it, they should apologise for it, they should demonstrate that it’s not going to be repeated. I think that’s an important message in politics in general as well as in life.]
The Electoral Act is the problem. Your denial of the fact is pathetic SNIP: Personal attack deleted – The Management.
Have you counted the results. Try it, redistribute the vote with only the last seven candidates standing and tell us what the result is? You can not comment on something you have no knowledge over. And on this one YOUR WRONG.
We even had members from opendemocracy.org and the Electoral Reform Society recounted the results and they both confirmed our analysis. Antony Green was in denial as you are and he did not do the research on the QLD result. But he did confirm my analysis on the Victorian Count.
Without having examined a full distribution I’m struggling to see why the Greens “should” have been elected in Queensland in 2007. At a quick look they polled little more than half a quota on primaries and thereafter received not all that much by way of preferences, and one of the bundles they did receive (ex Boswell) looks to me to have been inflated by the surplus-transfer bug. So why would things be different if you just considered the last seven candidates?
Incidentally the surplus-transfer bug is a very bad problem that definitely *should* be fixed and definitely *is* a problem with the Electoral Act. There are many superior alternatives for how to deal with a surplus from mixed sources; indeed, I struggle to think of any worse ones.
Kevin Bonham
Thanks for your informed questions
[Without having examined a full distribution I’m struggling to see why the Greens “should” have been elected in Queensland in 2007.]
If you analyse the results of the election and distribute proportionally the votes, according to the voter’s expressed intention and preference, the Greens candidate Larissa Waters received more support then the ALP’s third candidate. (I should point out that I am a member of the Labor party and whilst I am pleased the ALP secured three seats in the Queensland Senate, I am not pleased to discover that it did so purely as a result in the way preferences are distributed from excluded candidates.)
[Incidentally the surplus-transfer bug is a very bad problem that definitely *should* be fixed and definitely *is* a problem with the Electoral Act. There are many superior alternatives for how to deal with a surplus from mixed sources; indeed, I struggle to think of any worse ones.]
Fully agree. Western Australia has addressed this problem but they have not addressed the other identified flaw in the method of distribution of excluded candidates preferences. The reiterative counting process seeks to fill fill the principles identified by Meek whilst maintain a liner counting system. Each ballot paper is treated identically and as the excluded candidate has not stood. By resetting and restarting the count a fresh you achieve this equality., Only surpluses are distributed in any iteration. The process continues until all vacant positions are filled in a single iteration. The only reason this was not considered in the past was the time taken to restart afresh the count. With computerised counting this is no longer an issue. Whilst Meek is “technically” preferable if is non linear and somewhat convoluted. The reiterative count is a linear process. It is designed to simplify and correct the mistakes and distortion in the way the Senate vote is currently counted. The reiterative count produces 99.99% the same result as the Meek method.
[So why would things be different if you just considered the last seven candidates?]
It is just a quick way of getting to the last iteration. It proves that the outcome of the election was effected by the segmentation order and method of distribution of excluded candidates.
[There are many superior alternatives for how to deal with a surplus from mixed sources; indeed, I struggle to think of any worse ones.]
The ACT and Tasmania Last bundle system is not much better and equally flawed. If I vote 1 for a candidate who falls short of reaching a quota on primaries but is later elected following a segmented transfer of preferences, should I also not have a say in where any surplus that is achieved is distributed? After all did not my vote contribute to that candidates overall vote? Why should the last segmented distribution only determine where the surplus is distributed? Again the last bundle system was designed as a short cut to achieve a quick result. It has not merit or justification when a computerised counting system can produce a better and more accurate distribution of preferences. The system in place today are like an electric typewriter. Outdated and inefficient. (Sdaly we could not analysis in detail teh Tasmainian State elction as they did not undergo a preference vote data-entry process.
OK, so is this one of those cases where the iterative systems will pick a different winner to the non-iterative systems (even the ones that deal with surplus transfers in a vaguely rational way) because of the way a vote that is 1 for a tiddler party keeps its value well in the count, while a vote that is 1 for a major has a lot of its value locked away in elected candidates, even when the order of the two votes is the same from the perspective of those still remaining in the count?
I found this comment under Wright system on Wikipedia interesting:
[Under the system used in the Australian Senate a voter whose first preference is for a minor candidate and whose second preference is for a major candidate who has been declared elected earlier in the count is denied the opportunity to have their second preference vote allocated to the candidate of their choice. ]
…because this “denial” actually benefits the vote in terms of its impact on the outcome.
What the iterative counting system does is it desegments the counting system, there is no need for it to be segmented, it ensures that the vote will be treated equally and that when a candidate is excluded the ballot paper is distributed as though the candidate excluded never stood.
It allows for option preferential and a recalculation of the quota on each iteration. The number of iterations until all vacancies are filled through the transfer of Surpluses in a single iteration.
It gets rid of the situatioin where a vote jumps the Que or is delta from the bottom of the deck.
It really simplifies the count. It is easy to follow manually, if need be, Its the last iteration that decides the election outcome. To find out how it works recount the Queensland Senate election with only the last seven candidates remaining in the count. This is the equivalent to the last iteration.
If you vote for a minor party and then give your second preference to a major party then your vote will form part of their surplus and distributed further as such.
Yes it also includes a correct “proportional” calculation of the surplus based on the value of the vote nit the number of ballot papers
IF I hold 60% shareholding in a company and there are two other shareholders exh with 20% and I then want to pay out a 200,000 dividend the dividend would be divided by the value of the sharks not the number of shareholders.
When counting the vote each ballot paper is allocated a full value of one. As it is transferred as part of a surplus distribution its value is reduced if it forms part of a second surplus transfer its is allocated as a proportional ratio of its commnet value. You then sum up the value of all ballot papers allocated to any remaining candidate to determine their position in the count. There is no remainder issue as each paper retains its full value. If a vote exhausts in the count then only a fraction of its value is allocated to an exhausted sum.
The Brian Meek method is good but the iterative counting system is much less complicated and more accurate the current segmented distorted counting method. Its a linear counting process.
can we please keep this thread for analysis of the 2010 Senate counts…especially the SA and Vic counts. thanks.