Counts and recounts

The Labor leadership contest is approaching the end game, which is more than can be said for the election counts for Fairfax and the WA Senate.

Developments of various kinds in the field of vote-counting:

• Labor’s month-long leadership election campaign is finally drawing to a close, with caucus having determined its 50% share of the total vote yesterday and around 25,000 rank-and-file ballots to be counted on Sunday. Reports suggest that Bill Shorten has won at least 50 out of the 86 votes in the party room, receiving the undivided support of a Right which had been polarised during the Gillard-Rudd stand-off. By contrast, David Crowe of The Australian reports that Left members including Warren Snowdon, Brendan O’Connor, Kate Lundy, Laurie Ferguson, Maria Vamvakinou, Julie Owens and newly elected Bendigo MP Lisa Chesters have failed to fall in behind Albanese. Tea-leaf reading from party sources quoted around the place suggests Bill Shorten will do best if a large number of votes are received from his relatively strong states of Victoria and Western Australia, with most other states (together with the ACT, which punches above its weight in terms of ALP membership) considered strongholds for Albanese.

• ReachTEL published a poll yesterday of 891 respondents in New South Wales and Victoria showing Anthony Albanese favoured over Shorten by 60.9-39.1 in New South Wales and 54.0-46.0 in Victoria. Each had slight leads over Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister in Victoria and slight deficits in New South Wales. Results on voting intention confirmed the general impression from the limited national polling in finding no honeymoon bounce for the new government.

• Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn has ordered a recount of above-the-line votes for the Western Australian Senate, which will change the result of two Senate seats if a 14-vote gap between the Shooters and Fishers and Australian Christians parties is reversed. Also under review are votes declared informal the first time around, which is always a grey area. Tireless anonymous blogger TruthSeeker has performed good work in identifying count peculiarities potentially significant enough to turn the result, including a popular favourite known as the “Waggrakine discrepancy”.

• The Fairfax recount limps with the Clive Palmer camp apparently challenging any vote that doesn’t go its way, thereby requiring it to be sent for determination by the state electoral officer in Brisbane. AAP reports the result “won’t be known for at least another week”.

UPDATE: GhostWhoVotes relates that ReachTEL has let rip with its first post-election poll of national voting intention, and it continues an unbroken run of such polling in plotting a position for the Coalition south of what it achieved at the election, however slightly. Coming off a large-even-for-ReachTEL sample of 3600, it shows the Coalition with a two-party preferred lead of 52.1-47.9, compared with roughly 53.5-46.5 at the election, from primary votes of 45.4% for the Coalition (45.6% at the election), 35.3% for Labor (33.4%) and 8.6% for the Greens (unchanged). Tony Abbott’s performance is rated good by 40.5% and poor by 40.2%.

Author: William Bowe

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

1,614 comments on “Counts and recounts”

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  1. mikehilliard

    Oakeshott beat Abbott in a charity fun run, the disgusted Abbott replied “it isn’t a race”.

    Compare this to Margie buying a pair of kayaks to paddle in Sydney Harbour and look at the sights, and giving up when Tony turned everything into a race.

  3. [The lack of any opinion by any rusted-on Laborite regarding the desirability of stopping the boats indicates what everyone else knows. You’re waiting on instructions from new leader on what to support and what not to support.]

    M77, i think most people here have been on the record as to their attitudes to boats and probably cant be bothered repeating themselves for the resident nitwit.

    That said, you are providing some entertainment in terms the desperation to attribute any slowdown in arrivals to the magic touch of :monkey: alleged diplomatic skills. 🙂

  4. M77@1374

    Geez Mick you don’t give up. We all scrolled past this same post a couple of pages back.

    Just ‘cos nobody responded to the first one does not mean we did notice it as we scrolled by.

    You are still fighting this Reds Under the Beds stuff so must be about 90 yoa.

    I suppose you might have been the copper at Darwin airport when the Petrovs were taken off the plane?

    It is your Dear Leader who is taking us down the totalitarian path sport.

  6. [Compare this to Margie buying a pair of kayaks to paddle in Sydney Harbour and look at the sights, and giving up when Tony turned everything into a race.]

    I can actually picture this happening.

    When did it happen?

  7. imacca
    [i think most people here have been on the record as to their attitudes to boats ]
    I suppose that’s one way to deal with a question you don’t want to answer, but in any case it should therefore be easy to inform us if we missed seeing your view: So is stopping the boats good or bad in your opinion, regardless of whose doing it?

  9. It is reported that branch members votes are showing strong support for Albanese – 60/40.

    I understood this was a secret ballot and no results would be released until Sunday.

    So, who are the “sources” reporting this, and what confidence can we have in the vote if the information is leaked?

  11. feeney@1409

    It is reported that branch members votes are showing strong support for Albanese – 60/40.

    I understood this was a secret ballot and no results would be released until Sunday.

    So, who are the “sources” reporting this, and what confidence can we have in the vote if the information is leaked?

    I understood the ballot was being conducted by the AEC so presumably any leak would have to come from there.

  12. [So, who are the “sources” reporting this, and what confidence can we have in the vote if the information is leaked?]

    Could be journalist makin’ shit up? The caucus ballot was secret and the ballot box is sealed until tomorrow.

  14. I used to ride motorbikes at Eastern Creek for amateur events & down the home straight before turn 1 could get the old GSXR750 up to about 260km/hr. To slow down for the turn you would lift your head/shoulders above the fairing to act as a wind brake. I can tell you it was quite a shock & you would need to hold on like buggery. 315km/hr well…..

  15. Feeney, we live in the tech age. No secrets, well not for long anyway. Tomorrow, by 2pm ,when the emails go out it will already be common knowledge

  16. [I understood the ballot was being conducted by the AEC so presumably any leak would have to come from there.]

    I think the answer is, lets write a story based on nothing more than gossip and call it News.

  17. [So, who are the “sources” reporting this, and what confidence can we have in the vote if the information is leaked?]

    Good heavens, you sound as if you are trying to write off the result before it’s known.

    But seriously, think about members reporting who they voted for. Members have been all over twitter, Facebook, even here declaring their vote, even changing their gravatars to spruik their preferred candidate.

    I don’t know why members disclosing their vote should raise questions as to the legitimacy of the process.

  19. ruawake@1416

    I understood the ballot was being conducted by the AEC so presumably any leak would have to come from there.


    I think the answer is, lets write a story based on nothing more than gossip and call it News.

    I think you are onto something there ru. 😀

  25. My impression was that naturally postal ballots have to be verified and opened and placed in the stack/box ready to be counted officially.

    It is possible that staffers processing the mailed-in ballots have got anecdotal impressions as to what rate the ballots are trending to one or the other candidate.

    I don’t think there’s a whole lot of information there. It’s only a matter of hours until the official count is concluded and a result known, so … why the media can’t wait until then you’ll have to ask them.

    Being first is apparently much more important than being right these days. Look at the “publishing” of inaccurate tweets in previous ballots when waiting a few minutes would have revealed the official result.

  26. DisplayName, zoomster:

    But Clive told us the AEC rigged the vote in Fairfax, therefore it stands to reason that the AEC can’t be trusted when it comes to scrutineering the Labor leadership vote.

  28. The article I read was very clear that both Shorten and Albanese have scrutineers in the room, and that the reports come from them. It’s not a mystery!

  33. An ex student of mine (and lifelong friend of my eldest) has auditions for NIDA coming up. He’s about nineteen and has to chose monologues which are age appropriate. Any suggestions?

  34. [The article I read was very clear that both Shorten and Albanese have scrutineers in the room, and that the reports come from them. It’s not a mystery!]

    That was always going to happen. The question is, will 60% be enough for Albanese to overcome Shorten’s lead in Caucus? It will be close it seems.

  36. zoom, I ran it by someone and was told “there’s no point making suggestions for him, he should choose something appropriate to himself”.

    I don’t know if that’s helpful, haha :).

  38. [It will be close it seems.]

    If it’s close that delights me. It signals that Caucus can throw up two worthy candidates whom members think are equally capable of stepping into the role.

  40. I don’t know what some people think a 50/50 weighting means, but what I know for sure is that it implies that either of members or caucus alone don’t decide who the leader is.

  41. Given that the Tea Party Liberals reject science. I think all cyclones in future should be named after Liberal PMs 🙂

    It would be fitting, and accurate, that Australia was battered by a Billy or a Tonie 🙂

  43. [DisplayName
    Posted Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 9:43 pm | Permalink

    They only have a problem if everyone insists it’s a problem.]

    The advantage of member’s support is the legitimacy that curcus cannot give. If the new leader only gets in on a curcus vote he doesn’t get the legitimacy.

  45. If the members are at 60% and caucus vote it down, Labor has a problem.

    Not at all.

    60/40 plus 40/60 isn’t a problem.

    If they were running 80% or 90% one vs the other then you might have a problem.

    And as DisplayName says, it’s only a problem if the ALP members or MPs make it a problem.

    Don’t make it a problem.

    It’s not a big deal. In all likelihood, unless whoever it is performs extraordinarily well and Abbott extraordinarily badly, the leader chosen now won’t be the one to lead the next ALP government, so don’t sweat it.

    Focus on fighting Tories, not fighting yourselves.

  46. bemused

    That was my initial understanding, too. But now I note that George Wright, national secretart, has stated a Melbourne Barrister, is the Official Returning Officer.

    So obviously it is not being conducted by the AEC

    zoomster

    Yes, I know from being a scrutineer.

    So it would seem the scrutineers are mouthing off to the MSM.

    More the pity.

  48. [
    DisplayName
    Posted Saturday, October 12, 2013 at 9:49 pm | Permalink

    Then they should have 100% members vote.
    ]
    First time around causus would have been smart to make sure their vote was 50/50 so the members did decide.

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