BENTLEIGH (Margin: 6.20%)
| ALP | LIB | Swing | 2006 votes | |||
| Ordinary | 12,650 | 50.11% | 12,595 | 49.89% | 7.12% | 27,106 |
| Postal | 1,491 | 45.28% | 1,802 | 54.72% | 4.45% | 2,785 |
| Early | 1,857 | 47.04% | 2,091 | 52.96% | 3.25% | 2,223 |
| Marked | ||||||
| Provisional | 109 | 60.22% | 72 | 39.78% | 20.73% | 21 |
| Absent | 1,062 | 50.26% | 1,051 | 49.74% | 7.68% | 1,643 |
| TOTAL | 17,169 | 49.36% | 17,611 | 50.64% | 6.84% | 33,778 |
ELTHAM (Margin: 6.41%)
| ALP | LIB | Swing | 2006 votes | |||
| Ordinary | 12,382 | 50.83% | 11,980 | 49.17% | 5.94% | 27,530 |
| Postal | 1,262 | 46.59% | 1,447 | 53.41% | 2.87% | 2,497 |
| Early | 3,209 | 50.45% | 3,152 | 49.55% | 6.01% | 3,266 |
| Marked | ||||||
| Provisional | 96 | 51.89% | 89 | 48.11% | 14.78% | 6 |
| Absent | 1,234 | 56.68% | 943 | 43.32% | 4.05% | 1,775 |
| TOTAL | 18,183 | 50.80% | 17,611 | 49.20% | 5.61% | 35,074 |
BALLARAT EAST (Margin: 6.81%)
| ALP | LIB | Swing | 2006 votes | |||
| Ordinary | 13,288 | 51.49% | 12,521 | 48.51% | 5.35% | 26,866 |
| Postal | 1,331 | 48.84% | 1,394 | 51.16% | 3.23% | 2,026 |
| Early | 2,315 | 48.55% | 2,453 | 51.45% | 5.28% | 2,268 |
| Marked | ||||||
| Provisional | 158 | 54.30% | 133 | 45.70% | 2.51% | 0 |
| Absent | 1,576 | 57.94% | 1,144 | 42.06% | 5.88% | 2,236 |
| TOTAL | 18,668 | 51.41% | 17,645 | 48.59% | 5.40% | 33,396 |
MACEDON (Margin: 8.17%)
| ALP | LIB | Swing | 2006 votes | |||
| Ordinary | 15,671 | 51.21% | 14,930 | 48.79% | 7.48% | 28,429 |
| Postal | 1,505 | 48.44% | 1,602 | 51.56% | 6.47% | 2,455 |
| Early | 3,351 | 50.04% | 3,346 | 49.96% | 2.43% | 6,245 |
| Marked | ||||||
| Provisional | 139 | 62.61% | 83 | 37.39% | -12.61% | 16 |
| Absent | 1,315 | 57.73% | 963 | 42.27% | 3.27% | 1,910 |
| TOTAL | 21,981 | 51.23% | 20,924 | 48.77% | 6.94% | 39,055 |
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
| ALP | LIB | NAT | GRN | OTH | IN DOUBT | |
| Eastern Metro | 2 | 3 | ||||
| Northern Metro | 2 (-1) | 2 (+1) | 1 | |||
| South-Eastern Metro | 3 | 2 | ||||
| Southern Metro | 1 (-1) | 3 (+1) | 1 | |||
| Western Metro | 2 (-1) | 2 (+1) | 1 | |||
| Eastern Victoria | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||
| Northern Victoria | 2 | 2 | 1 | |||
| Western Victoria | 2 | 2 | 1 (+1) | 0 (-1) | ||
| TOTAL | 16 | 18 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Tuesday, December 14
The button was pushed today on the count for the Legislative Council, securing the Coalition its 21 seats out of 40 and wrapping up the election count as a whole. Key to the Coalition triumph was Liberal candidate Craig Ondarchie’s victory in Northern Metropolitan from the second position on his party’s ticket, producing a result of two Labor, two Liberal and one Greens. His win came at the expense of Stephen Mayne, who in the event finished fairly solidly behind the second Greens candidate (2.6 per cent to 1.6 per cent) at a point where he had hoped to stay in contention by absorbing her preferences, and the Sex Party, who with 7.4 per cent failed to stay ahead of third Labor candidate Nathan Murphy on 9.1 per cent at the second last count. At that point the second Ondarchie was far enough ahead of Murphy that there was no prospect of preferences closing the gap, with the former sneaking over a quota on preferences from Mayne. In Western Metropolitan, below-the-line votes made the difference by heavily favouring the Greens – largely because below-the-lines for right-wing minor parties who had put Labor ahead of the Greens on their preference ticket tended to exhaust. The rate of exhaustion was such that Colleen Hartland won election with slightly under a quota, finishing on 16.6 per cent to Labor candidate Bob Smith on 16.2 per cent.
Saturday, December 11
As you may have noticed I’ve been less than vigilant in following the count, but those with an interest will be aware that Stephen Mayne continued to fade in late counting in terms that will almost certainly deliver the final Northern Metropolitan seat to the Liberals, securing the Coalition their upper house majority. The only remaining point of curiosity is whether Colleen Hartland of the Greens can secure re-election in Western Metropolitan, thereby achieving a status quo result for a party that had hoped for so much better. Antony Green reports all will be revealed when the button is finally pushed on Tuesday. Hopefully there will be no repeat of the 2006 error in which the Democratic Labor Party was wrongly credited with a second seat.
Monday, December 6
Stopped paying attention there for a while after the VEC started re-checking and took their existing results offline. Antony Green offers a thorough update, noting that recounting in Northern Metropolitan is proceeding slowly due to intensive scrutineering of the result that could deliver the Coalition an upper house majority. In Western Metropolitan, the tide seems to be favouring the Greens’ Colleen Hartland, who might yet retain her seat at the expense of Labor’s number three. UPDATE: Kevin Bonham in comments still rates her the underdog.
Wednesday, December 1
Stephen Mayne has discussed his prospects at length in his email newsletter, noting he has two hurdles to clear: first to stay ahead of the Greens at what appears as count 8 in the ABC’s projection, where he is currently on 1.54 per cent to the Greens’ 1.22 per cent, and then for the below-the-line count to not upset his applecart by putting him behind Liberal and Labor at the second last count. Mayne rates himself only a 50-50 chance of clearing the first hurdle as he expects the Greens to surge as absent votes are added. I’m not sure what was added today, but the addition has seen the Greens lose ground – possibly too much for Mayne, as Kevin Bonham argues in comments, because it will mean fewer of their preferences for him if he can stay ahead. Bonham reckons Mayne will need to significantly outperform Labor in preferences from the 3170 below-the-line votes which are recorded as going to him on the ABC projection, which treats all votes as above-the-lines. Bonham, who has learned a thing or two about preference behaviour from analysis of Hare-Clark elections in his home jurisdiction of Tasmania, reckons this unlikely, and that the most probable result would indeed be a twenty-first seat for the Coalition.
In the lower house, addition of absent and other votes have seen Labor pull further ahead in Eltham and Ballarat East, to 546 and 510 votes respectively, which puts these seats and the final result beyond doubt: the Liberals have won 35 seats and the Nationals 10, with Labor on 43. I will continue updating my tables as new figures come in, but I won’t be offering any further commentary on the lower house unless something unusually interesting happens.
Tuesday, November 30
Long past time I had something to say about the upper house, with the Coalition on the precipice of majorities in both houses. The Liberals have gained a seat from Labor in Southern Metropolitan and the Nationals have gained the DLP’s seat in Western Victoria. They also look likely to win seats from the Greens in Western Metropolitan and to hold off a challenge from the Country Alliance in Northern Victoria, where their second seat had been under threat. That puts the Coalition on 18 seats out of 40 with a likely extra two to achieve a blocking majority, and the chance of getting over the line for an absolute majority of 21. The decisive factor in Northern Metropolitan will be the second last count, at which the Labor number three, Liberal number two and Stephen Mayne appear to be at almost level pegging. Mayne will win the seat if he finishes ahead of either or both, and the current ABC projection has him finishing ahead of Labor after soaking up the Greens’ surplus and an eclectic range of preferences from the Sex Party, DLP and Family First. Should he finish behind the seat will almost certainly go to the Liberals, although Labor remain at least a mathematical possibility.
In continuing lower counting, Labor’s lead has more than doubled in Ballarat East, from 166 to 343, with the addition of 657 more postals and the first 766 absents. It was the latter which made the difference, breaking 60-40 their way – not unpredictably given that most would be sourced from town voters who cast their ballots in Ballarat West. Eltham too has become slightly firmer for Labor with 795 more pre-polls gaining them a handy 53 votes, but losses on rechecking have pared back the overall improvement in their lead, which goes from 245 to 267. Bentleigh and Macedon have drifted out of the doubtful column. Rechecking and a highly unfavourable batch of 819 absent votes has further increased the Liberal lead in Bentleigh from 460 to 559. In Macedon, the addition of 419 postal votes has cut Labor’s lead from 498 to 419, but it’s probably too little too late.
Monday, November 29
9pm. Another 605 postals in Bentleigh have broken 321-284 the Liberals’ way, increasing their lead from 423 to 460. In Eltham the addition of 5730 pre-polls and 600 more postals has increased Labor’s lead from 225 to 245. I’m not sure on what basis Labor sources quoted in the ABC yesterday were expecting to lose this seat – I would rate them better than even. Another 416 postal votes have been added in Ballarat East and have broken perfectly evenly, with Labor continuing to lead by 166.
4.30pm. Labor has had a disappointing result from 2268 pre-polls in Ballarat East which have cut their lead from 388 to 166. The addition of 5111 pre-polls from Macedon has also cut their lead from 719 to 498. However, absent votes remain to be added, and in both cases they favoured Labor heavily in 2006.
Sunday, November 28
11pm. Bob Katter’s Hat in comments relates that according to an ABC report, “Labor sources expect to lose Eltham but are ‘hopeful’ on Macedon”.
6.41pm. If there are the same number of absent votes as last time, and if anything there are likely to be fewer, they would need to defy every trend going by swinging to Labor by 5 per cent to overturn the Liberals’ lead.
6.34pm. The VEC site has now updated, and it has the Liberal lead at 15,667 to 15,244. The Herald-Sun’s assertion that only “some postal votes” remain to be counted is at best imprecise, as no absent votes have been added – and there were 1643 of these in 2010. So what we have today is the addition of 3130 pre-poll votes which, as stated in the previous entry, have broken 1670 to 1460 in favour of the Liberals and increased their lead from 213 to 423. The table at the top of the post has now been amended to reflect this. As you can see, the notion that there would be more of these than last time and that they would be relatively favourable to Labor was quite correct, but not nearly to the extent they required. So it’s fair to say that the ABC computer, which has copped some flak over this, was right all along.
6.12pm. Boerwar in comments reports postals have favoured 1670 to 1460 to the Liberals – I’m not sure if this includes or is in addition to those counted last night, which favoured the Liberals 1072 to 1050. An update on the VEC tally room site would be nice.
6.09pm. The Herald-Sun reports that there are now merely “some postal votes” remaining to be counted, so obviously absent votes as well as pre-polls have been counted (although I fail to see how absent votes could have been assembled so quickly from every corner of the state). In any case, a very clear impression emerges that barring counting errors, the Liberal lead of about 400 is insurmountable, ending any doubts about the overall result.
5.45pm. Rod Hagen in comments hears from Twitter that pre-poll counting in Bentleigh is trending against Labor, increasing the Liberal lead from 213 to 430.
5pm. By popular demand, the VEC have announced they will be counting the pre-poll votes from Bentleigh today. In what promises to be the television event of the year, this will apparently be broadcast live on Sky News.
Saturday night
This thread will be used to follow late counting in the Victorian election, which – for those who have just joined us – promises to be a focus of fierce interest due to the possibility of a 44-44 tied parliament if everything falls Labor’s way. For now you’ll have to look elsewhere for a summary of the situation. However, below is a table which will hopefully shed some light on a few important aspects of the situation. Four must-win seats are identified in the table, of which Labor currently leads in three while trailing by 213 votes (0.38 per cent) in Bentleigh. The first row of the table shows two-party results from ordinary votes, thus excluding the postals that were added last night. To give an idea of how the remainder of the count might go, the next five rows show Labor’s two-party results on the various types of vote in 2006. The story goes that a large number of pre-polls might offer salvation here for Labor in Bentleigh, but that would seem very unlikely indeed going on the precedent of last time. However, Labor is doing slightly less poorly on postal votes than last time — their primary vote is only 1.5 per cent lower — so there might be at least something in the idea that votes cast earlier would not have copped the effects of the late swing to the Coalition. The left column shows the percentage of the statewide vote accounted for by each vote type in 2010. The bottom half of the table shows the ordinary vote turnout in each electorate, which as you may have heard was substantially lower than last time.
| ALP 2PP | |||||
| % | Bentleigh | Eltham | Macedon | Ball. East | |
| 2010 Ordinary | ? | 50.0% | 50.8% | 51.2% | 50.9% |
| 2006 Ordinary | 78.0% | 57.2% | 56.8% | 58.7% | 56.8% |
| 2006 Pre-Poll | 9.0% | 50.3% | 56.5% | 56.2% | 53.8% |
| 2006 Postal | 6.5% | 49.7% | 49.5% | 54.9% | 52.1% |
| 2006 Absent | 6.5% | 57.9% | 60.7% | 61.0% | 63.8% |
| 2006 Declaration | 0.1% | 81.0% | 44.4% | 50.0% | – |
| Ordinary votes as percentage of enrolment | |||||
| 2006 | 75.5% | 74.3% | 69.1% | 73.9% | |
| 2010 | 68.0% | 64.3% | 67.4% | 66.5% | |
Finally, can we please keep this thread specifically for discussion of the count. If you would like to discuss the Victorian election in more general terms, the election night thread is still open below.
[Woah! Labor is really stuffed if they would even consider forming a Coalition with the Nats:]
It’s all silly-season stuff by Bracks at this stage. People should wait for the results before getting too carried away about the possible consequences of 44-44.
Shows they are still clutching at straws. Fair dinkum it is time for the Victorian Labor Party to realise they have lost.
The best they can get to is 44 and if another election has to be held the Libs would win in my view.
As a member of the party i think their attitude is poor. They cannot even use the greatest number of 2pp votes as a reason.
marky marky
if it is 44 all. Who has lost?
DM @ 32: are you using 100% of enrolment as the target figure or are you taking account of the 6%-ish of that target figure who habitually fail to vote? I keep getting Coalition needs only 48.5-ish of likely actual remainder in Bentleigh to win, not 48.9.
“Sky News will have live coverage of the Bentleigh count, with live gfx as the count begins”
The Oz poll was accurate in (I) predicting a big swing in the metro area(a) a small swing in the regional seats where Labor did quite well,but was in error in predicting a higher Green vote than that recorded,
Is it possible that the Greens will do much better in the pre-polls than expected..if so what seats would they effect in the final count…and the end result ??
any thoughts ?
Bendigo West is still worth a look at as well. The count was ALP vs Lib but the Libs were outpolled by the Nats. There was also at least one minor party – CA – I think it was – had their HTV – Nat, ALP, Lib but on counting so far the ALP would have got those votes following that card.
I always considered Steve Bracks a nice guy but none too bright – his comments on the Nats proved it.
Wow! logical thinking from a government authority …. no real point dragging it out
Unless there is some serious major history defying miracle in the works – the final result in Bentleigh won’t even be close once the pre-polls are counted and the absent votes won’t even matter (even if they might break the ALP way a little)
Red Ted should be able to claim victory by tonight
Hard to see anything but 45-43 as the final result now despite the 44-44 public posturing from ALP talking-heads last night while the ALP backroom boys were admitting defeat to ABC’s Josie Taylor
SNIP: Please see the last sentence of the post – The Management.
[Many sources are now reporting Bentleigh counting today.]
Indeed. They will be undertaking further counting from 4PM today, including the outstanding postals, pre-polls etc, as announced earlier today.
[I always considered Steve Bracks a nice guy but none too bright – his comments on the Nats proved it.]
I think you are selling him way short, blackburnpseph. He was a very clever politician, was Steve Bracks.
Bracks might actually have been able to pull something like this off, in fact. Of course historically such arrangements are not unheard of, as SA 2002 most recently demonstrates. . I doubt that Brumby could do it, though.
Why are your comments only giving the ALP perpespective? I would like to see the stats for those seats from the Coalition viewpoint as well.
SNIP: Please see the last sentence of the post – The Management.
Anyone following the riveting Sky live telecast? I don’t have Pay TV.
Kevin@54. Yes I use 100% because I dont know what the actual turnout will be (and will be different across divisions). The point of the exercise is not so much the exact number, but ranking the divisions according to the closeness of the count. So you get Eltham being “closer” than Bentleigh because of a similar current 2PP count but fewer votes counted.
KB
Sky has now no live coverage of the couting.
Sticking to William’s comment to restrict this thread to the counting itself, it seems very unlikely that Labor can form government at this point. As William said, Labor need everything to go their way in counting to get to 44 each. A win in Bentleigh seems difficult, and there are still the other undecideds as well. Statistically it would seem low odds that Labor will get swings its way and a good PV in all of them. Hence I think the probable outcome here is not a hung parliament, but a coalition victory. If you need four 50/50 bets to go your way to get to a draw, you only have a 1 in 16 chance. I’m not even sure that some of these are 50/50.
Is there any other seat that Labor could win to get to a majority? I don’t see it. If not, time to concede and start the shredding machines. Voters don’t like sore losers.
Brumbies were not brought over to Australia from anywhere.
They are an Australian cultural creation: a name for feral horses.
Result to be known in Bentliegh by 7pm tonight according to Channel 9 News….
Commentary on Sky now. Reporting no change in the numbers. 50.36% to the Liberal candidate. Unclear from the report whether this represents last night’s figures or additional counting.
Commentary on Sky stopped again; just an item in their news. None the wiser after the item.
[Commentary on Sky now. Reporting no change in the numbers. 50.36% to the Liberal candidate. Unclear from the report whether this represents last night’s figures or additional counting.]
Last night was 50.38%.
Socrates @ 67:
[Hence I think the probable outcome here is not a hung parliament, but a coalition victory. If you need four 50/50 bets to go your way to get to a draw, you only have a 1 in 16 chance. I’m not even sure that some of these are 50/50.]
I also think the Coalition will probably win but I will point out that the probabilities of a Labor win in the remaining seats are not independent of each other.
The only way Labor can realistically win Bentleigh is if the increase in prepoll voting embodies a change in the makeup of prepoll voters cf. 2006 and that change is in Labor’s favour. If this is the case it will likely be true in all the other “close” seats as well – eg if Labor wins Bentleigh then the probability of 44-44 becomes rather high.
Conversely if Labor does not win Bentleigh then that substantially increases – but not to close to certainty – the chance that Eltham or some other close seat is lost as well.
I notice that the candidates in Kororoit were Kesic, Smietanka, Kairouz, Majdlik and Rozec. Can anyone name another Australian election in which there were no Anglo candidates?
The ABC is saying that Stephen Mayne has won a Legislative Council seat. I didn’t even know he was running, which shows how little attention I’ve been paying. I suppose it’s time he won something.
This piece in Crikey re Mayne
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/thestump/2010/11/28/mayne-could-hold-balance-of-power-in-victoria/
[The ABC is saying that Stephen Mayne has won a Legislative Council seat.]
The ABC is in all probability wrong. Below the line votes exhausting in Vic makes getting up from a very low primary extremely difficult.
Bracks was/is a clever operator who outwitted Kennett in “99,and stitched up a deal with the 3 indies who then gave Bracks his option to rule.
I suspect his statement was a cunning effort to play games with the coalition’s mind.
Those who don’t know their Victorian history may not know that in the period from 1935-45 and again from 1950-52 there was a minority Country party Govt lead by a Premier ,Dunstan and others (no relation to the famous S.A premier)who hated the other conservative party,and ruled with ALP support in return for concessions to Labor.
Unlikely by our standards but a fact of Victorian life at that time,and the cause of a generation of hatred between the two conservative parties…much to Labor’s good !
Good try Steve Bracks !!
The ABC is giving the Council result as: Lib 16, Nat 3, ALP 17, Green 3, Country Alliance 1, Ind 1. So the Council is finely balanced Right 20, Left 19, Ind 1.
Kevin, are you extending your omniscience across Bass Strait, to challenge Antony? This will be like Godzilla v Terminator, or whatever it is.
SNIP: Please see the last line of the post – The Management.
[Kevin, are you extending your omniscience across Bass Strait, to challenge Antony? ]
Antony is well aware of, and openly acknowledges, the limitations of a computer model that assumes 100% flow-by-ticket for an election where there is not only BTL voting but also BTL exhaust.
To repeat what it says in the post:
[Finally, can we please keep this thread specifically for discussion of the count. If you would like to discuss the Victorian election in more general terms, the election night thread is still open below.]
What happened Adam I thought projections had the Coalition set to win 21 upper house seats???
What concerns me with the ABC modelling of outcomes is to see a page like this:
http://abc.gov.au/elections/vic/2010/guide/nmet-results.htm
It is headed “Legislative Council Results”.
It should be headed “Legislative Council Projected Results”. There should be a disclaimer on the page indicating that the final counts may be different and why. The level of caution in the presentation of the prediction is inadequate and is doing the public relying on the information a serious disservice. I must stop this or I will mutate into D@W.
(Re Mayne, my #77 was a bit harsh. I need to find more detailed info – if it exists – on the rate of BTL leakage and BTL exhaust before knocking his chances down quite that low!)
[The ABC is giving the Council result as: Lib 16, Nat 3, ALP 17, Green 3, Country Alliance 1, Ind 1. So the Council is finely balanced Right 20, Left 19, Ind 1]
Good. If the Libs do win government by a seat or two (which IMHO could be a good thing for Victoria) Labor and the Greens will be able to block any controversial legislation in the Council. We don’t want another Kennett on our hands.
Glue Factory loading dock awaits!
John, you can talk all the childish bullshit you like on the other thread. If you leave another comment on this one which does not intelligently engage with the matter of the count, I’m going to ban you.
Still no commentary on Sky.
Hi William, but what other thread?
Where’s your preferred pigeon hole for preferred comment?
Happy to oblige. There’s a lot of deep anger out there. I’m just crystalising it.
What’s happening in the Nth Metro is that Mayne, on the current projections, just edges out the 2nd Grn by 0.01%. If this holds up, he’ll probably win the seat, benefiting from Grns, then Family First, DLP, Sex Party and ALP prefs. However, if the Grns do well on absent and pre-poll votes, as they usually do, they’ll get ahead of Mayne at this critical exclusion, and I think the Libs win the seat. The 2nd outcome is more probable, which means that the final LC will probably be 21 Right, 19 Left.
Sky still reporting last night figures with no additional info about what has been happening with the counting for the last hour and a half.
Glen, I’m only quoting the ABC. As Kevin says, the Council result may be otherwise. Nevertheless, on the ABC’s figures, the Libs have only picked up one seat from Labor (in Melb S), while the Nats have knocked off the DLP, who usually voted with Labor, in Vic W. I’m surprised you didn’t win a third seat in Melb SE or second seats in Melb W or Melb N.
JM
You would have a natural home on Bolt’s blog.
John, please refer to the last sentence in the post, and to what it says in comment numbers 1, 5, 6, 13, 25, 26, 28, 32, 34, 45, 60, 68 and 83, plus any others I may have missed. Your failure to have noticed any of this gives me the teensiest impression that you’ve no interest in intelligently engaging with anything, and I’d frankly prefer it if you didn’t come here.
I aswell…
I am surprised Albert Park is still in doubt. They’ve only counted 60% could be a shock result if the pre-polls trend as the election day votes.
No more news from Bentleigh should have a result by 7pm ABC News…
And what of the informal vote count? Informal votes reflect voter disengagement with the political process.
Tweets indicate that Bentleigh has blown out to a Lib lead of about 430 votes so far on today’s count.
The informal vote on the ordinary count is basically unchanged on 2006 – down from 4.93% to 4.91%.
Rod I think the Tweeters will call this seat (Bentleigh) before the VEC lol!
Pre-polls must be trending as the votes on election day…good news for Red Ted.