Friday
I believe the results don’t attain official status until tomorrow, but the preference distributions published today are off essentially the same numbers of votes as the primary vote counts, and can thus be treated as final to all intents and purposes. Here’s how it pans out:
Brindabella: Liberal 3, Labor 2. Zed Seselja is effortlessly elected for the Liberals, while Brendan Smyth makes it to a quota after distribution of Seselja’s surplus and preference from excluded Liberals Nicole Lawder and then Val Jeffery. At the point of Jeffery’s exclusion, he trails Liberal colleague Andrew Wall 5135 votes to 4938. Wall thus remains in the count with enough votes to see off defeated Greens member Amanda Bresnan by 8859 to 8247, leaving him the last candidate standing and winning him the fifth seat. For Labor, incumbent Joy Burch led the primary vote count with 8989 followed by former incumbent Mick Gentleman on 5069, with other Labor candidates some distance behind. Preferences do little to disturb this, resulting in Burch and Gentleman picking up the two seats.
Ginninderra: Labor 3, Liberal 2. As has been very widely discussed now, Ginninderra has indeed delivered the Greens the nightmare scenario of Labor’s surplus over the second quota dividing almost perfectly evenly between the second and third Labor candidates, Chris Bourke and Yvette Berry, leaving Greens member Meredith Hunter unable to overcome either. At the relevant exclusion, Bourke is on 9449, Berry on 9127 and Hunter on 8245. Comfortably leading the Labor primary vote and first elected from their ticket is incumbent Mary Porter. Similarly, the Liberal incumbents Alistair Coe and Vicki Dunne were untroubled by intra-party challengers.
Molonglo: Labor 3, Liberal 3, Greens 1. As I foreshadowed yesterday, late counting favoured incumbent Steve Doszpot in the race for the third Liberal seat against Elizabeth Lee, overturning yesterday’s narrow deficit and putting him in front 9311 to 9068 at the final exclusion. This immediately follows the election of the second Liberal, newcomer Giulia Jones. By far the strongest performing candidate on the Liberal ticket was incumbent Jeremy Hanson. Katy Gallagher overwhelmingly dominated the Labor ticket, and the distribution of her preferences heavily favoured the other two incumbents, Andrew Barr and Simon Corbell, over the four other Labor candidates. The election of Barr as the second candidate was never in doubt, but it takes Gallagher’s preferences to put Corbell ahead of Meegan Fitzharris, a 1896-2614 deficit turning into a 5269-3689 surplus. That gap is little changed after the exclusion of the other Labor candidates, with Corbell prevailing 8037-6437 at the relevant exclusion. Shane Rattenbury outpolls the other Greens incumbent, Caroline Le Couteur, 4937-4503 on the primary vote, and remains about that far ahead until Le Couteur is excluded with 7765 votes to Rattenbury’s 8001.
Thursday
I dropped the ball for a couple of days there in covering the very exciting developments in the count, with the prospects firming for a 3-2 outcome in Ginninderra – meaning another seat lost to the Greens and a final result of 8-8-1. Today’s indicative preference distributions published on the Electoral Commission site account for about two-thirds of all votes cast, with the process to be finalised on Saturday. As anticipated, the trend in Ginninderra has been strongly in Labor’s favour – and particularly in favour of Yvette Berry, with Chris Bourke’s vote share actually declining slightly. On today’s numbers, Meredith Hunter finishes in sixth place with 6406 votes at the final exclusion (0.77 quotas compared with 0.76 yesterday) against 7253 for Berry (up from 0.83 to 0.87 quotas) and 7054 for Bourke (down from 0.86 to 0.85 quotas).
In Molonglo, Liberal incumbent Steve Doszpot continues to trail by the slenderest of margins against party colleague Elizabeth Lee, being 28 votes behind at the key exclusion in today’s distribution, up from seven yesterday. However, the relativites between the primary vote and preference distribution figures suggest Doszpot should gain from here. The count the preference distribution is based on includes 67.9% of the total first preference count, and Doszpot’s share of the first preference count is 5.73% compared with 5.49% in the preference count. Lee’s relative shares are 4.92% and 4.87%. On the Labor ticket, Simon Corbell is now sure to survive an intra-party challenge from Meegan Fitzharris thanks to the large share of voters who gave their first preference to other incumbents and continued to favour incumbents on their preference orders thereafter. His lead at the relevant stage of the count is 5229 to 4448.
In Brindabella, the latest distribution has Greens incumbent Amanda Bresnan’s trailing the third Liberal by 864 votes at the final exclusion, Bresnan’s earlier narrow lead being wiped out yesterday as anticipated as more favourable votes for the Liberals were added to the count. The point at issue is thus who out of Andrew Wall and Val Jeffery wins the third Liberal seat. Wall has a handy lead of 398 on the latest distribution, although this has narrowed from 474 yesterday.
Monday
Antony Green suggests the election count may yet take an unpredictable turn, with the Greens in danger of losing their Ginninderra seat to a third Labor candidate. If this came to pass the result would be Labor 8, Liberal 8, Greens 1.
Presently the Electoral Commission’s indicative preference distribution, based on the pre-poll electronic votes which accounted for 28.2% of the total, gets to a 2-2-1 result by having Labor’s Yvette Berry bow out and her preferences electing Labor colleague Chris Bourke, whose preferences in turn deliver a seat to Meredith Hunter of the Greens. This is the outcome one would ordinarily expect with Labor on 2.4 quotas and the Greens on 0.6. Certainly such a result could be taken for granted in the Senate, where candidates appear in a fixed order on ballot papers and voters dutifully follow the above-the-line voting option. The top two Labor candidates elected at the beginning of the count, leaving the third Labor candidate with the remaining 0.4 quotas.
The issue under Hare Clark is the candidates are generally not elected at the beginning of the count, which means a greater share of the Labor vote remains in the count for a longer time. In this case only Mary Porter is elected early in the count, which means 1.4 Labor quotas for the Greens to contend with. The risk for the Greens is that the 1.4 will divide evenly between the second and third Labor candidates, leaving each with more than Hunter’s 0.6. Compared with the electronic polling figures, that would require an improvement in Berry’s vote and a decline in Hunter’s – which is exactly what the polling booth vote shares suggests will happen.
We have also seen today a substantial chunk of the primary vote count added, accounting for 10.6% of enrolment, with a number of booths that did not report on Saturday night doing so today. This has seen Labor’s 1.1% lead in overall vote share shrink to 0.3%, with the Greens down a further 0.3%.
Labor Liberal Greens Counted Brindabella 35.9 (-0.7) 46.2 (+10.9) 7.9 (-5.7) 87.2% Ginninderra 40.0 (-0.2) 33.6 (+5.5) 10.0 (-3.8) 85.5% Molonglo 40.8 (+4.6) 37.1 (+5.7) 13.2 (-5.2) 82.2% TOTAL 39.0 (+1.7) 38.7 (+7.1) 10.7 (-4.9) 84.6%
Overview
Barring late surprises, the result looks very much like 3-2 to the Liberals in Brindabella, 2-2-1 in Ginninderra and 3-3-1 in Molonglo for a total of Liberal 8, Labor 7, Greens 2. The Liberals have been aggressively asserting their moral right to govern, which is tactically understandable but harder for an objective observer to credit. By the end of the evening they had fallen behind Labor on the primary vote, and the figures are such that a two-party preferred result under a single-member system would be about 53-47 in Labor’s favour.
Liberal claims that the Labor-Greens alliance had been “rejected” are dubious on face value, requiring us to overlook the fact that those two parties presently have over half the vote between them. Such claims further require that we conceive the result in purely negative terms, in which case we can equally say that over six in 10 voters “rejected” the Liberal Party. The alternative gambit has been to argue that the swing to the Liberals means the electorate has voted for “change”. On this logic, John Howard should have handed Kim Beazley the keys to the Lodge in 1998. Elections can only be determined by votes cast, not their proportions relative to some arbitrary point in the past.
The Liberals will certainly be able to boast the largest number of seats, which even accounting for the government’s longevity is a strong result in the hostile electoral environment of Canberra – particularly given the anticipated impact of public service cutbacks by conservative governments elsewhere. The key to this triumph was the tactical coup of winning a third seat in Brindabella, achieved through policy positioning, campaign resources and the candidacy of Zed Seselja.
It is a nicety of proportional representation systems that the party with the most seats be given the proverbial first chance to form a government. However, this does not amount to much in practical terms if the numbers are against that party – and is in any case a convention of systems where the formal appointment of the government is in the hands of a figurehead who might wish to keep removed from the partisan fray. This does not apply in the ACT, where the position of the Chief Minister is confirmed by the Assembly. Clearly most of those voting for the Greens would have done so in the expectation that they were voting against a Liberal government, and it seems safe to assume the Greens will keep this in mind during the negotiation process.
Final vote shares for the night:
Labor Liberal Greens Counted Brindabella 35.9 (-0.5) 45.7 (+10.4) 8.2 (-5.4) 77.9% Ginninderra 39.9 (-0.4) 33.4 (+5.3) 10.3 (-3.5) 77.6% Molonglo 41.0 (+5.0) 36.0 (+4.5) 13.9 (-4.6) 68.3% TOTAL 39.1 (+1.7) 38.0 (+6.4) 11.0 (-4.6) 73.8%
A purely impressionistic view of which might be that:
• The Liberals’ 6.4% gain was partly at the expense of Labor and partly from others;
• Labor compensated for these losses by absorbing much of a 4.6% drop in support for the Greens;
• A “Zed Seselja effect” helped the Liberals gain up a further 2-3% from Labor in Brindabella, balanced by a comparable loss in Molonglo;
• The Liberals garnered a further boost in Brindabella through a concentration of campaign resources and, perhaps, the recruitment of Val Jeffery (who polled 6.5% in 2008 with the Community Alliance);
• Labor gained in Molonglo in the absence of the Frank Pangallo ticket, which polled 4.8% last time.
Electorate by electorate:
Brindabella. The Liberals are left looking very smart in having targeted Brindabella, which has paid off with an extra seat at no cost elsewhere. Zed Seselja and Brendan Smyth are the clear winners of the first two seats, with the third remaining a toss-up between Andrew Wall (3.9%), Val Jeffery (3.7%) and Nicole Lawder (3.4%). Labor’s winners are incumbent Joy Burch and former incumbent Mick Gentleman. Losing her seat is Amanda Bresnan of the Greens.
Ginninderra. Chic Henry of the Motorists Party remains a hypothetical chance of winning the final seat, but it’s far more likely to be retained by Meredith Hunter of the Greens for a result of 2-2-1. Liberal incumbents Alistair Coe and Vicki Dunne will clearly retain their seats. Mary Porter is clearly re-elected for Labor, but mid-term arrival Chris Bourke (7.7%) is struggling to stay ahead of Yvette Berry (7.6%). This result will most likely be determined by the flow of Porter’s preferences. As usual, the competing tendencies within Porter’s preference flows will include a share who favour incumbents and a share who favour women.
Molonglo. Katy Gallagher has so dominated the Labor vote that the fate of the party’s third seat is hard to read, with Andrew Barr clearly well favoured enough to score the second. If Gallagher’s supporters continued with the logic of favouring high profile figures in the party, incumbent Simon Corbell stands a good chance of closing the 2.9% to 2.1% deficit against Meegan Fitzharris. However, Fitzharris is likely to gain a dividend from those Gallagher supporters who were favouring a woman candidate, and her evident success as a candidate in outpolling Corbell will spill over to at least some extent into Gallagher’s preferences. On the Liberal ticket, incumbent Jeremy Hanson topped the poll but his colleague Steve Doszpot was outpointed by the incoming Giulia Jones. To win the Liberals’ newly acquired third seat, Doszpot (who is on 5.4%) will need to stay ahead of fourth-placed Elizabeth Lee (4.7%) after preferences, and the Electoral Commission’s interim count based on the electronic voting results suggest this will be touch-and-go. The Greens face a game of musical chairs with two incumbents chasing one seat, in which Shane Rattenbury leads Caroline Le Couteur 5.7% to 5.3%.
Finally, determining votes cast for male and female candidates turns up some interesting patterns. A significant factor in Labor’s case is that Jon Stanhope has exited the field and been replaced as Chief Minister by a woman, who accordingly enjoyed a dramatic increase in her personal vote. Even so, the 22.3% “swing” to Labor women is highly noteworthy given the gender balance of the candidates was unchanged. There’s also a basis to argue that the Liberals erred in not preselecting more women, given that the five endorsed this time almost matched the result of the seven endorsed in 2008, and in particular the strong performance of Giulia Jones in Molonglo.
Candidates Votes TOTAL Male candidates 50 (-10) 58.3 (-7.3) Female candidates 24 (-2) 41.7 (+7.3) LABOR Male candidates 10 (-) 36.7 (-22.3) Female candidates 7 (-) 63.3 (+22.3) LIBERAL Male candidates 12 (+2) 77.9 (+1.9) Female candidates 5 (-2) 22.1 (-1.9)
Live commentary
9.39pm. Labor pulls ahead of Liberal on the aggregate vote on what Antony believes to be the final count for the night.
9.05pm. And the second Labor member in Ginninderra, where Chris Bourke is second on 7.7% against 7.2% for Yvette Berry.
9.02pm. As I see it, all that’s in doubt now is who wins the third Liberal seat in Brindabella and the third Labor seat in Molonglo.
9.01pm. The Greens declining in Molonglo as well, where the picture is a fairly clear 3-3-1.
8.59pm. A 10.4% batch of the vote in Ginninderra has closed the gap between the Greens, down from 10.9% to 10.5%, and the Motorist Party, up from 7.2% to 7.5%.
8.57pm. Brindabella count now up to 60.3%, and I think you can put down your glasses: the Liberals vote has surged further to 46.2% and the Greens have fallen to 7.9%, confirming a result of three Liberal and two Labor. Joy Burch and Mick Gentleman elected for Labor; Zed Seselja and Brendan Smyth for Liberal; the final Liberal seat continues to have Andrew Wall leading Val Jeffery 4.1% to 3.7%.
8.43pm. Another 4.9% added in Ginninderra. Greens down slightly, fractionally improving the Motorists Party’s chances.
8.40pm. Another 6.8% in Brindabella further improves the Liberals position there.
8.33pm. Winner of third Liberal seat in Brindabella unclear: Andrew Wall on 4.0%, Val Jeffery on 3.7%, Nicole Lawder on 3.5%.
8.26pm. Liberal also declining in Ginninderra with 31.7% counted, although not enough to fundamentally change the situation. Motorist Party boilover not looking any likelier.
8.24pm. A big addition in Brindabella boosts the count to 35.9%. The swing against Labor is down from 1.4% to 0.5%; to Liberal down from 10.6% to 9.9%; against Greens little changed at 5.1%. The Liberal surplus over the third quota is down from 0.748 to 0.712, while the combined Labor and Greens surplus 0.616 to 0.664 (remembering there will be a lot of leakage there). Of Bullet Train (4.1%) and Motorist Party (3.9%) preferences, I can offer no insight.
8.16pm. Ginnninderra count up from 21.6% to 24.8%, but little change.
8.14pm. The Brindabella count is up from 21.7% to 26.5%, and in relative terms Labor has gained 0.5%, the Liberals have lost 0.5% and the Greens have lost 0.2%.
8.00pm. Kevin Bonham’s analysis of the first booths from Brindabella provide more encouragement for the Liberals. If so, a result of Liberal 8, Labor 7 and Greens 2 is firming up.
7.55pm. Booth results coming very slowly. Only a tiny increase in the count since the pre-polls were finalised.
7.34pm. Andrew Barr sounding bullish about booth results.
7.32pm. By no means likely that the Motorists Party will win a seat in Ginninderra, but one to keep an eye on.
7.24pm. That new batch that made no difference in Molonglo was substantial, upping the count by 7.6%.
7.23pm. Another 4% of the vote in Brindabella sees slight Liberal decline.
7.22pm. Antony has all pre-polls for Molonglo; the latest batch hasn’t changed the situation.
7.19pm. Interesting to note strong performances from women just noted.
7.13pm. Labor’s Meegan Fitzharris (second place) well ahead of Simon Corbell (fourth) in Molonglo. Liberal incumbent Steve Doszpot trailing Giulia Jones, also in Molonglo. Other incumbents untroubled in intra-party contests.
7.10pm. Counted: 15.5% in B, 19.5% in G, 11.7% in M.
7.03pm. So best indications are 3-3-1 in Molonglo, 2-2-1 in Ginninderra and 3-2 to the Liberals in Brindabella, for a total of Liberal 8, Labor 7 and Greens 2. However, a different trend on booth votes could change some of that.
7.01pm. Another batch sends Labor backwards in Ginninderra, strengthening likelihood of 2-2-1.
6.58pm. So the Liberals can hope for eight seats, if things keep going their way in Brindabella and Molonglo. The Greens are most probably looking at two.
6.55pm. Scratch what I said about Molonglo: much better for the Liberals than that. They’re on three quotas, and Antony is talking about 3-3-1.
6.54pm. Greens looking pretty good in Ginninderra: best bet there looks like another 2-2-1 result.
6.53pm. Giulia Jones has pulled ahead of Steve Doszpot for the second Liberal seat in Molonglo.
6.50pm. ABC website figures updated. Still early figures for Molonglo, but my guess is a status quo result of 3 Labor, 2 Liberal, 2 Greens. Well-informed Labor member John Hargreaves on the ABC though still thinks Labor could get a fourth at the expense of Caroline Le Couteur of the Greens.
6.44pm. My early guess is that Zed Seselja’s move to Brindabella has paid dividends then and might them a third seat (with Labor two and the Greens zero), but it’s still hard to see them building upon their two in Ginninderra and Molonglo. Very unclear how the Greens will go in Ginninderra or Molonglo though.
6.43pm. Antony’s discussing more up to date figures than on the ABC site, and the Liberals have gained further since the first batch.
6.41pm. Molonglo Greens: Shane Rattenbury only slightly ahead of Caroline Le Coteur, daylight third.
6.40pm. Antony has more numbers, particularly from Brindabella, and the Liberals appear to be doing very well there, and must be considered a shot at the third seat.
6.38pm. Molonglo Liberal: Jeremy Hanson here but Steve Doszpot struggling early, mixing it with Giulia Jones and Elizabeth Lee.
6.37pm. Molonglo Labor: Weak early result for Simon Corbell, in danger from Meegan Fitzharris. Katy Gallagher dominant, Andrew Barr second.
6.36pm. Ginninderra Liberal and Greens: Incumbents Coe and Dunne well clear, third unclear. Incumbent Meredith Hunter well ahead of Greens field.
6.35pm. Ginninderra Labor: Mary Porter and Chris Bourke clear in first and second, third still unclear.
6.35pm. Brindabella Liberal and Greens: Status quo, Seselja, Smyth and Bresnan looking for re-election. If a third Liberal, very unclear who.
6.34pm. Brindabella Labor: Joy Burch headed for easy win, Mick Gentleman well ahead for second seat, third seat if any toss-up between Karl Maftoum and Rebecca Cody.
6.33pm. So the very early indication are Brindabella: Liberal 2 and Labor 2, last seat toss-up between Liberal and Greens. Ginninderra: Labor 2, Liberal 2, Greens 1. Molonglo: Labor 3, Liberal 2, Greens 1, last seat anyone’s guess. Repeat: these are very early figures.
6.25pm. And here’s the first result, accounting for 1.7% of enrolled votes in Brindabella, 2.7% in Ginninderra and 4.8% in Molonglo. These point to a much higher “others” vote than the Patterson poll indicated, and slight increases in the vote for Labor, Liberal and the Greens.
6.22pm. Antony Green reports that 47,677 electronic pre-poll votes were cast, accounting for 18.6% of enrolled votes, and that these will be fed through to the media results feed over the coming hour. That should give us a very strong indication of the way things are headed, very early. Polling booth results however will not start coming through until after 7pm, owing to the ACT’s lack of small rural booths.
6pm. Polls have closed. Follow the results through the ABC and argue the toss here. Presumably the ABC’s live coverage featuring Antony Green will be broadcast on ABC News 24.
Still 11,000 votes to be counted in Ginninderra.
I would like to congratulate both Kevin Bonham and others for their excellent contributions and astute analysis in respect of the ACT election. Apart from actually having lived there during my years at ANU I have very little idea of how their unusual system actually operates.
Well done for enlightening us.
Kevin Bonham was thr first to alert the world to Wilkie possibly winning Dennison if my memory has not failed me
[Kevin Bonham was thr first to alert the world to Wilkie possibly winning Dennison if my memory has not failed me]
Yep, in terms of the call on the night. One of my better moments, though I have an unfair advantage because I live in Denison and knew what to look for, and especially knew that there is a tiny booth here that reports very early. There is a lovely recap of my totally killer live-blog of the unfolding Wilkie Event at http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/article/the-morning-after-/
One of my less good moments was never giving the guy more than an outside chance during the campaign. There were a few posters here who were onto it during the campaign; I think blackburnpseph was one of those. Also Hamish on Tallyroom.
This Ginninderra thing is very interesting whether it actually happens or not. Even the possibility that it could happen – that a Green could get done by a major from 0.20 Q ahead, something I believe I’ve never seen – is very instructive about what a tricky creature Hare-Clark is.
Antony now says “the Labor Party stands a very strong chance” and that is where I think it’s at. It’s realistic that it might not happen because of postal shifts or different preference behaviour, but I’d certainly take Berry’s position over Hunter’s on what we know so far.
Looks like we will know more soon judging from Antony’s post at http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2012/10/provisionally-elected-members-for-act-2012-election.html#more
The word “ahead” in the above should be in quote marks of course.
Could be more goodies Tuesday night:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/dont-jump-the-gun-on-poll-results-20121022-281u0.html
it’s getting worse and worse 🙁
nothing personal but I hope you guys are wrong 🙂
Any chance for Amanda in Brindabella or is it done and dusted as 3 Liberals, 2 Labor???
In the end though, even if it does get to 8-8-1 – The Greens will decide who runs the show 🙂
From the CT article Kevin linked above:
[In Molonglo, initial preferences have Labor candidate Meegan Fitzharris claiming a seat at the expense of Attorney-General Simon Corbell]
I can’t say this surprises me – always unimpressive.
I can’t see any chance for Amanda Bresnan in Brindabella. The ALP and Greens combined do not enough have of the vote to enable them to get 3 seats. ALP has 35.8%, Greens have 7.9% giving them 43.7% combined compared to 46.3% for the Liberals. When the quota for 3 seats is 50% it’s hard to see where the votes could come from to get ALP/Greens a third seat. Even the Libs on 46.3% will have trouble getting to the 50%, and it will be the votes of Bresnan that will eventually put the Liberal candidate Wall over the top!
Bourke and Berry each about 500 ahead of Hunter.
Another 2000 votes. Hunter is not closing the gap. 9,000 votes to come.
There’s actually only 2,000 to 3,000 votes left to come in/count. The 9,000 you are quoting is the difference between the votes in currently of 67,299 and the enrolment of 76,140. But voting is never 100% of enrolment. In 2008 total votes was 91.5% of enrolment in Ginninderra. If that percentage applies this time we would expect about 69,700 votes.
They’re actually moving along quickly with the count. The 2,100 votes that just came in were postal votes for Ginninderra. There will be a few more postals later in the week, but not many.
Maybe we’ll get 100% turnout, just this once. 😯
The Molongolo postals have been posted and so for the ACT as a whole Labor has fallen behind Libs in number of votes by 32 votes. Labor 84,447, Liberal 84,479. We’ll see if the other categories of votes like the interstate votes and the declaration votes change this.
Seriously the amount of time it takes to get a clear picture of what’s happening makes Saturday night’s three hour election exxxxxxxxxtrrrrrrravagaaaaanzzzza on ABC just look silly.
Kevin (#256) don’t know if you noticed but Elections ACT website says distribution updates will be uploaded at approximately 7pm for remaining days this week. So more goodies each evening!
Yes I have been whacking refresh on that every 15 minutes or so since there is supposed to be one tonight.
8PM. This is worse than waiting for the next poll.
TLBD – Doing Zed time.
The distribution update for Ginninderra disappointing as the only Ginninderra polling booth included was Aranda which is a Green stronghold. So no change with regard to Hunter or Berry. There were quite a few booths for Molongo included so this distribution has changed who gets elected for Molongolo, but it could easily change tomorrow when other Molongolo booths are added in.
stanny & shellbell
Just to second what you guys said. The commentary has been excellent.
johncanb @ 270
I think Belconnen was another Ginninderra booth that was added today for the distribution of preferences. Aranda was quite a strong booth for Hunter where she polled 15.2% compared to Berry’s 5.7%. Hunter (9.0%) also outpolled Berry (6.7%) in Belconnen.
Overall, the preference distribution count has Hunter ahead of Berry on primaries by 353 votes but the count is only around 28% complete. Berry will make up the difference as the count goes on. It will come down to how the preferences flow but Berry is in a much stronger position.
The only booth from Gungahlin (where Fitzharris was pushing hard) is Amaroo (out of 6), so Corbell isn’t out of the woods yet.
Although as I said the Molonglo results are likely to change tomorrow, it is worth putting on the Poll Bluder record the new results. The latest data are the full distribution of 36,414 votes which is 40.6% of the votes of 89,729 so far counted in Molonglo. So its a good sample, but we don’t know whether its a representative sample.
Second. In the battle between Corbell and Fitzharris, in this distribution Fitzharris goes out and Corbell is elected. At the point of elimination Corbell is 2950 and Fizharris is 2867, so not much in it.
In this distribution Dozspot nudges out Lee and at the point of Lee’s elimination Lee has 3175 and Doszpot has 3273, so again not much in it.
In this distribution Rattenbury nudges out Le Couteur and Rattenbury has 3540 to Le Couteur on 3504, so that one is particularly close.
We await with interst the updates tomorrow
Just crunched some numbers on Ginninderra and then hit the wrong key and wiped out my post. Grrr. Busy tonight and didn’t need that at all. So please excuse me not recalculating.
The Ginninderra votes that are the basis for tonight’s spreadsheet are actually less representative of the overall primary total than the electronic sample alone was. So I do not think that we learn much in that seat from tonight’s releases and expect them to spawn ill-informed commentary in the MSM.
The amount by which the gap between Labor and the Greens closes in this distribution is about .27 Q. This is greater than the .2 Q currently separating the party totals after deducting Labor’s 2Q. If that is replicated in the final count then the Greens are actually behind on raw quota at the end and lose without reference to the split-total trick. But I believe that since this sample overrepresents the Green total and underrepresents Labor’s, the amount by which the gap closes in this sample is exaggerated. The reason for this is a larger Green total leaks more and a smaller Labor total leaks less. So I wouldn’t trust that too much.
The amount by which Hunter gains on Berry in the current preference sample slightly exceeds the amount by which she is currently behind in the real count. But I think that is irrelevant too because in the real count the other Labor candidates have more spare votes for Berry to gain from. So I see nothing that contradicts that Berry is in a strong position but I don’t see a lot of enlightenment creeping in either.
I think I can throw some light on the Corbell vs Fitzharris battle in Molonglo. Saturday night’s interim preference distribution (of electronic votes from pre-poll and Saturday) which showed Simon Corbell being eliminated was based on a over-represented Fitzharris primary vote of 4.02% vs Corbell of 2.29%. In the close-to-complete primary count now available, Fitzharris has 2.9% vs Corbell’s 2.07%.
The distribution of Katy Gallagher’s surplus went about 10% to Fitzharris and 25% to Corbell in both Saturday’s and tonight’s distributions. (This is not surprising given what we know about previous elections here and in Tasmania. Andrew Barr gets even more than Corbell as the other well-known name on the ballot paper.)
In the current overall primary count, Fitzharris has a 747 vote lead. On present figures, Katy Gallagher will have a surplus over quota of at least 12,323. If the proportions of the Gallagher distribution they received in Saturday’s and tonight’s interim distributions hold, Fitzharris stands to gain around 1230 distributed votes and Corbell around 3080. I think you can see the outcome.
Fitzharris does a little better than Corbell from Kulasingham’s and Drake’s preferences (respectively the Labor right-wing ticket and Labor feminist effect) but this is not nearly enough to overcome Corbell’s incumbent minister advantage.
I don’t think the preference flow of the Gallagher surplus will be affected much by different booths, and we can test this tomorrow night. The two Ainslie booths are about as green left feminist as you could get (exceeded perhaps by Baker Gardens which was closed for renovations this election), but this would be offset by Barton and Chapman and the conservative bias in the pre-poll votes.
Yes, I admit to a little local knowledge 🙂
Thanks for this very high-class analysis.
Re Kevin’s #275
The front page of the Canberra Times says “Corbell, Hunter back in the race” while ABC Online has “Hunter, Corbell back in race”. Both reports simply pick up the result of yesterday’s interim distributions without analysis.
If the MSM get it wrong, they only have themselves to blame, because they could have read Poll Bludger to get the right goss.
To be fair to the Canberra Times I expect they got yesterday’s interim distribution figures pretty close to deadline for the paper. On the other hand that doesn’t excuse them for thinking that the outcome of the latest interim distribution is an indicator of the end result.
Whatever the final result, it’s clear this election has been a disaster for the Greens, on what should be their strongest turf. This follows weak performances in Heffron and Melbourne and the NSW local government elections. I think the verdict is in. Without Bob Brown, the Greens are going backwards.
I thought I was getting sick of 67, 299 but 67, 309 isn’t doing any better.
the Greens built their 10% on Koalas, trees, climate change and renewables. With SHY and the other watermelon candidates they have attracted, they have trashed the franchise with social policies most don;t care for, like polyanna refugee support and same sex marriage.
Get back to basics, or this will be Democrats Mark 2
Not sure if it’s Milne’s presence, Brown’s absence, something else or all of these (the polling evidence for a shift caused by the leadership change is inconclusive in my view) but I agree with Psephos: this one is a shocker for the Greens.
The full scale of the shocker only becomes apparent on preferences from things like the possibility of Hunter losing. I’ve seen Green incumbents win a lot of tight ones from seemingly much worse positions than this.
Just about to do a post on the main thread alerting posters to my departure from Tasmanian Times.
Antony has tweeted an update. Any data?
New Ginninderra update – 52% counted preference flow.
Grn .6329 Q
Hunter .4131 Q
ALP 2.367 Q
Berry .4547 Q
Final result Hunter .7637
Berry .8298
Labor 2.6937
Labor wins three thanks to split-candidate trick.
Net gain through count .0245 to Berry
Net gain by Labor .1498
CF actual primaries:
Labor 2.3949
Berry .4476
Green .6011
Hunter .4035
Labor-Green gap is 1.7938 Q cf 1.7341 in sample
Berry-Hunter gap is .441 cf .416 in sample
Berry is winning on a sample that is a slightly inferior position to the actual current primary standings.
That’s a very strong position to be in.
OK it’s only a few hundred votes and there’s still a lot of preferences to throw, but it is looking so likely now that this will actually happen.
Latest count has the Libs’ Elizabeth Lee beating out Steve Doszpot by 7 votes! (but still only 53.5% of the vote counted)
As for Gininderra, only 52.1% counted but looks grim for Meredith Hunter.
As for the Greens in general, people tend to overstate things on the way up and overstate them on the way down. The Greens’ total vote is still their second best in ACT (although not in terms of seats, which is what matters for Parliament) – they were a bit lucky to get the 4th seat last time and a bit unlucky to miss out on 2 this time. No party can say it’s a good result when they lose seats, but it’s not the end of the line it’s being portrayed as in some quarters. The 2008 result was an outlier, and it’s a wake-up call to see almost all of it evaporate again.
(Maybe it’s just because I’ve had the experience with the Democrats as a contrast, but I know a wipeout when I see one, and this isn’t it).
[(Maybe it’s just because I’ve had the experience with the Democrats as a contrast, but I know a wipeout when I see one, and this isn’t it).]
True, but how the Greens handle any perceived decline will be important to whether it later becomes a wipeout. For instance if there was infighting and leadership squabbles.
True ltep – but again I’d say there’s infighting and there’s Democrat-style infighting. From my experience, the Greens have bits here and there – not as much as The Australian would have you believe, but still some. But it’s not in the same galaxy as the Democrats when things went pear-shaped (and I will point out before someone else does that I contributed to it)
I think the Greens’ position as the Third Party is still quite solid, but the effort to get up to the next level is a tough fight. I think regardless of all the state and territory and local government results, that will all boil down to whether or not Adam Bandt retains the seat of Melbourne at the next federal election – and I certainly don’t think he (and the Greens) can be written off in achieving that.
Great stuff from the PB cognoscenti but where are the figures on the Electoral site?
Ten more votes in Ginninderra today. I find it hard to contain myself.
The interim distribution for Molonglo tonight includes the extra suburbs of Campbell, Deakin, Downer, Duffy, Forde and Garran, and 53.5% of the total primary votes counted so far. Labor is still slightly under-represented in this distribution compared to the overall primary count, meaning that the Gallagher surplus distribution will be even more influential in the final count. Fitzharris still starts this distribution with a relatively better primary vote lead over Corbell than she will have in the ultimate count.
Corbell gets almost 26% of the Gallagher surplus in this distribution while Fitzharris gets 9%.
We’ve seen these proportions hold firm from the electronic votes and now across the range of booth demographics. I think we can say without any doubt that Corbell has been re-elected.
TLBD #291 … There were no extra primary votes for Molonglo today 🙂
canberra boy,
I see where you are conning from as not one just scruting.
If I were to join the ALP where, in the suburb of Higgins, would I best apply as someone who will not be aligned?
Wrote a long and silly piece about all this stuff over here:
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/getting-gininderraed-another-for-hare.html
Andrew, I didn’t say the Greens are finished or will implode. I don’t think that. I just think their seemingly inexorable rise has stopped and seems to be going into reverse. No doubt they will retain their base vote of 10% or so, but the additional support they’ve won over the past few years seems to have melted away. I don’t think party infighting is the cause. Nor do I think it’s things like the BDS row in Sydney, much as I dislike Rhiannon and co. I think it’s (a) the loss of Bob Brown’s enormous personal reputation, and (b) the recovery in Gillard’s standing and the policy wins she’s had, which has brought some of the defectors back to Labor. I have a good deal of respect for Milne, she’s intelligent and articulate and right about a lot of things. But she has a very off-putting manner and I don’t think she has a hope of retaining the Greens’ federal vote in 2013 at the 2010 level. That means that Ludlam and Extremely-Young could well lose their seats. Bandt certainly will.
I don’t think the Greens would have had a hope of retaining their 2010 vote in 2013 under any possible leader, real or imaginary.
In an electoral sense I am very much a Milne-sceptic based on her track record in Tasmania. She led the Greens to their two worst results here in their modern history. It is telling that there was a swing against them in 1996 (despite a massive swing against the Groom Liberal majority government) and that there was another swing against them in 1998 (even though the system had been altered in a way that disadvantaged them and they should have been able to obtain a sympathy vote.)
I consider it was Milne’s tactical approach that caused then Liberal Premier Tony Rundle to cave into Labor’s demands to shrink the House in a particular manner.
I don’t think she has changed a bit.
Have probably said all of this here before.
Hmm – Brindabella is suddenly more interesting. The Green, Amanda Bresnan has caught up on preferences on the latest scrutiny sheet (October 24) and, on my projections is still in with a chance. What’s really interesting is that it appears to me that the second Lib to be elected, Brendan Smyth, will need the preferences of Andrew Wall, the last Lib standing, to make quota. If this happens then the race for the last seat will be between Bresnan and Rebecca Cody, the last ALP in the count.
James, Antony points out that the current preference distribution is based on primary vote figures which show a 0.23 gap between the Liberals and the Greens, whereas the first preference total shows the gap to be 0.31. It follows that the votes yet to be added to the preference count will be a lot more favourable to the Liberals, so that Bresnan doesn’t stand much of a chance.
As Antony shows clearly in his latest post, Bresnan has nil, zero, zip and no chance in Brindabella.
Labor have crept 55 votes ahead of the Libs in the primary votes due to posting of some ‘central scrutiny’ and ‘interstate’ votes. As the main votes left to be posted are declaration votes which tend to favour Labor, I think Labor will stay ahead.