Sunday. The Tasmanian Electoral Commission has provisionally reviewed the preferences and been unable to determine definitively that the Greens will finish ahead of Labor in Hobart, although it seems fairly clear that they will. Beyond that, only the margin of Valentine’s win over whoever finishes second is at issue. In Western Tiers, Greg Hall has 73.4% of the vote.
7.41pm. Four more booths in and three more to go, and we’re still looking at a result of about 36% for Valentine, 22% for the Greens and 20% for Labor.
7.15pm. Par for the course result from West Hobart booth.
7.14pm. 1235 pre-polls are very strong for Valentine (40.6%), very weak for Labor (15.5%) and status quo for Greens (23.6%).
7.09pm. Lenah Valley booth is Valentine’s strongest and the Greens weakest yet; but South Hobart the Greens’ strongest yet and Labor’s weakest. Greens looking very likely to finish second, unless James Sugden’s preferences flow heavily to Labor for some reason. The gap between Valentine and the Greens is now 37.0% to 23.1%, so if you weren’t calling it for Valentine before you would be now.
7.01pm. North Hobart relatively strong for Labor and weak for Valentine, though the Greens have still beaten Labor in every booth so far.
6.59pm. I defer to the superior judgement of Stephen Luntz in comments, who reckons Labor preferences will favour Valentine over the Greens, meaning he should win easily.
6.57pm. Mount Stuart is a relatively weak result for the Greens, with 19.5% only fractionally ahead of Labor on 19.4%, and Valentine on 35.8%. More results like that would put the issue beyond doubt.
6.54pm. The two Hobart city booths are now in, and the Greens candidate has a solid lead over Labor (26.3% to 20.4%), and remains close enough to Valentine (34.3%) to make life interesting – depending on the behaviour of preferences from Labor and strongly performing independent James Sugden (12.9%).
6.46pm. First result in from Hobart is West Hobart, and Rob Valentine’s has 31.8%, Labor’s looking bad with 22.9%, with the Greens in second place on 24.5%. At this early stage, you wouldn’t rule out a Greens win over Valentine on Labor preferences, even if your money would be on Valentine.
6.45pm. Half of Western Tiers’s booths are in before Hobart has got out of bed, and Hall is now on 74.6%.
6.31pm. Three more booths from Western Tiers, and Hall now up to 76.2%.
6.25pm. Four booths in from Western Tiers, and clearly no prospect of a boilover: Greg Hall 72.9%, John Hawkins 27.1%.
6pm. Polls have closed for the Tasmanian upper house elections for Hobart and Western Tiers. I presume we’ll be getting small rural booths in very shortly from Western Tiers, but will have to wait half to three-quarters of an hour for results from Hobart.
Will the hat rise?
I’d be pretty sure that Labor preferences will favour Valentine over the Greens, so not a chance in hell we’ll win. This is a race for second place. With three booths in we’re beating Labor in all of them (and the other candidates are nowhere) but I think these are amongst our better booths, so I think the contest for second could go down to the wire.
Just did some scrutineering at Sth Hobart. The booths counted early were strong Greens booths and their vote will drop off as the evening progresses (they might get 20 or so) and the Labor vote should come up, though being beaten by the Greens in North Hobart would be a bit of a worry on even that front.
On the limited preference sampling I’ve done with another scrutineer at South Hobart and Albeura St Valentine’s position is rock solid.
While things are fast and furious I’ll be posting a lot of comments here:
http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/dr-kevin-bonham-at-the-poll-face/show_comments/
Prepoll very strong for Valantine, and weak for Labor, relative to the booths that are currently in. On that basis I would expect Greens to be comfortably clear of Labor on primaries, the question is if there will be much of a pro-Labor flow from the smaller candidates that might upset things.
Re #5 we have this sample of the preferences of Sugden at Albeura St:
Valentine 42%
Winter 28%
Forster 19%
Hiscutt 9%
Ann 9%
The Greens are clearly second on primaries and it’s not even certain they’ll be caught by Labor on preferences, though I think they will at the moment. The closeness for second might stall the notional distribution tomorrow assuming they do one.
There’s absolutely no reason to believe anyone will close down Valentine on preferences at all and I reckon we are looking like a 60:40 2CP or maybe even more.
Kevin, I’d have thought it would be closer to 65:35. Valentine is close to double Winter, and I would have thought the preferences would flow in similar fashion if Winter overtakes Ann. He “only” has a 5:3 lead over Ann, but if she stays ahead of Winter I’d expect the preferences to favour Valentine more strongly, so either way I’d imagine he’ll end up not far short of two thirds of the non-exhausted.
Looks to me like there are two remaining questions: Who will come second, and whether Valentine can reach 50% before the last distribution.
[Kevin, I’d have thought it would be closer to 65:35.]
I haven’t tried to crunch numbers on it in detail so can’t rule that out. At the moment I think more likely over 60 than under.
As for RV reaching 50 before the last distribution I think that’s a big ask. He’d need to get five points more than Winter and Ann combined off the 20-odd points for other candidates. He is getting strong flows but I don’t think quite that strong.
Yes I’d agree it’s not that likely that Valentine will make it to 50% before one of Ann and Winter go out, but worth looking out for. I think you’re right it’s more likely than not that Winter will overtake Ann, but I hold onto hope on that front.
Something I should mention is that there is quite wild variation between booths and even between samples in the same booth in the direction of Ann preferences between Winter and Valentine. Different samples have had either 2-1 ahead, none of these samples being all that large though. Probably means that if Ann is eliminated (which she may not be) her preferences will be pretty even.
Dissapointed for dean, great to see you g people like him having a go,
I hope he does not get down over this, i think we need youth like this in the LOWER
HOUSE
Well done for standing
Well done for standi g dean, but i think we need youth like yourself the lower house
May be turn your attention the the loer house
EWell done for standi g dean, but i think we need youth like yourself the lower house
May be turn your attention the the lower house
I think Winter got punished for being too naughty with some of his attacks on Valentine during this campaign. In some ways his campaign failed to learn some of the lessons of Queensland but given that Hobart was a lost cause to begin with, he probably figured it was worth taking the risk just in case it came off.
I definitely don’t share Winter’s interest in cluttering Mt Wellington with unviable commercial junk but I thought he showed he had something to offer. Given that they will be going into the next election with Bacon (zzzzzzzzzzz) and Sturges (zzzzzzz) as incumbents they will need to do something to attract votes in the city if they want to even have a chance of holding more than 1 seat (or of gaining one should we go back to the 7-seat system.)
Provisional distribution being conducted. Forster and Hiscutt votes are pooling with Sugden temporarily but he is still fourth, Valentine pulling away from Ann and Winter as expected, Winter gaining on Ann but not quickly and the race for second is now quite unclear especially if Valentine gets lots of the Sugden preferences.
Valentine got closer than I expected to crossing on Sugden’s preferences – less than 1% shy. The Greens have finished second; the gap of nearly 400 is too large to overturn on the outstanding 500 or so votes.
Cutup has stalled for now but there may be enough results to determine beyond mathematical doubt that Winter is third tomorrow.
All done and dusted bar the trickle of remaining postals and Valentine is currently beating Ann 62.5:37.5.