Thursday morning
I’ve now taken Gaven, Cook and Burdekin off my watch list, the first two credited to Labor, the latter to the LNP (see below for further detail on Burdekin). That gets Labor to 45, which then becomes 46 if Margaret Strelow is right to have conceded defeat in Rockhampton, which she presumably is (more on that below also). To get to 47, Labor would need one out of the following: to retain Macalister, which will happen if independent Hetty Johnston can’t close a 3% gap against the LNP on preferences (which I would rate somewhat likely); Townsville, which is going down to the wire with Labor very slightly behind; and to be the beneficiary of Scott Emerson’s defeat in Maiwar, which seems somewhat more likely to go to the Greens. The ABC computer is predicting 48 for Labor, but I’m not sure why, because it only projects them with leads in 47.
The latest iteration of my results table looks as follows, with explanatory notes to follow:
Rockhampton
The big news of the day was independent Margaret Strelow’s concession that she is not going to win, contrary to most back-of-envelope projections to this point. The kicker is apparently a very tight 60% flow of preferences from the LNP to the One Nation, which will cause the latter to overtake Strelow at the second last exclusion, by a fairly comfortable margin of around 400 votes on my reckoning. One Nation would need about 55% of Strelow, LNP and Greens preferences to overtake Labor, and evidently Strelow’s are favouring Labor enough that this is not going to happen. It seems a full preference count will be conducted today.
Macalister
The count here seems unusually advanced, so there will presumably not be much change to the current results – which is good for independent Hetty Johnston, who has been getting smashed on postals. The key to the situation is the LNP’s 26.66% to 23.33% lead over Johnston, which she needs to close to poach the seat from Labor. The sources of the preferences will be the Greens on 6.54% and three minnows on 6.82% between them. Out of a three-way split of preferences, Johnston’s share will need to be about 25% higher than the LNP’s. Buried deep in a typically eyeroll-inducing report from the Courier-Mail is the news that Labor is very confident that this won’t happen.
Townsville
Not much progress in the count yesterday, with 90 postal votes breaking about evenly, and Labor clawing back about 30 on rechecking of booth votes. I still have the LNP a few dozen votes ahead, but there are perhaps 2000 absent votes that are yet to be counted, which might turn up something for Labor – though they were in fact slightly favourable to the LNP in relative terms in 2015. The same goes for maybe 700 outstanding out-of-district pre-poll votes. Also to come are around 600 declared institution, polling day declaration and uncertain identity votes, whose idiosyncrasies cancelled each other out last time.
Maiwar
All that was added yesterday were 130 postals, which increased the Greens’ primary vote lead from 37 to 43. Still to come: about 1500 absent votes, which are historically strong for the Greens; about 400 out-of-district pre-polls; a trickle of postals and 200 or so odds and sods. With scrutineer talk of a strong flow of Greens preferences out of the 737 votes for independent Anita Diamond, Labor will need to do extremely well on the outstanding count to get their nose in front.
Burdekin
My projection that the LNP would pull away here is looking pretty good after 652 postals were added to the count yesterday, breaking 430-222 to the LNP if preferences behaved as before. I’m projecting a 637 vote LNP win, and while this is probably inflated by an overestimate of the number of outstanding postals, I’m no longer regarding it as in doubt.
Hinchinbrook
Not really anything to follow here, as we won’t know the real situation until the preference distribution. However, it looks very much to me like One Nation’s narrow lead over Katter’s will be eliminated by Labor preferences, and that Katter’s will then ride home over LNP member Andrew Cripps on One Nation preferences. That’s unless Labor gets a strong flow of preferences from independent Peter Raffles and the Greens (3.04%), in which case Labor will close a 21.02% to 18.83% deficit against Katter’s, causing the latter to be eliminated in fourth place. In this case, there would need to be a Labor preference share around 30% higher than that to the KAP – plausible in the Greens’ case, but there doesn’t seem any reason to think preferences from Raffles, who wants statehood for north Queensland, will not go strongly to Katter. As top candidate on the ballot paper, some of Raffles’ vote would be of the donkey variety, and that vote won’t harm Katter’s.
Tuesday evening
The ECQ have unhelpfully pulled the notional two-party counts from their site. That makes it particularly difficult to track Burdekin, where Labor today picked up a bonus I hadn’t been factoring in: a strong pre-poll booth at Collinsville, which would have narrowed Labor’s two-party deficit from 366 to about 150. However, I’m still projecting the LNP to gain a couple of hundred votes on remaining postals.
Labor had a much better day today in Townsville, getting 35.3% of the primary vote from a batch of 635 postals, compared with 28.5% from the earlier batch of 885. The LNP’s 37.7% vote in the first batch fell to 33.2% in the second. Based on earlier reported preference flows, I’ve got Labor paring their deficit back from 78 to 31, and the projected losing margin down from 312 to 154 – and with perhaps 3000 voters yet to come, there’s a fairly substantial margin for error on that.
In Maiwar, the Greens are now 37 votes ahead of Labor on the primary vote, pending the unknown quantity of the preferences of independent Anita Diamond, who is on 734 votes. Kevin Bonham hears scrutineer talk that the Greens are getting a strong flow of preferences from those votes, to the extent that they should boost them by about 200. The two main outstanding categories of vote are absent votes, both of the pre-poll and polling day variety. If these favour the Greens like they did in 2015, I’m projecting the margin to increase by 135 votes. That does not factor in what will presumably be a few hundred outstanding postals, which have so far been fractionally more favourable for Labor.
Monday evening
A better day for Labor today, with three indicative two-party counts in seats where the ECQ had picked the wrong top two all bringing good news. In short:
Cook. A Labor-versus-One Nation throw records One Nation receiving 64% of preferences, when they need more like three quarters. The only remaining question is whether it will indeed be One Nation facing Labor in the final count, the other possibility being Katter’s Australian Party, who might get a better flow of preferences. However, there are likely to be only about 2500 votes left to be added to the count – in which case KAP would need to outpoll One Nation by nearly 10% of the outstanding vote, when they are closely matched at present.
Maiwar. Labor will clearly defeat the LNP’s Scott Emerson if it make it to the final count ahead of the Greens (I’m not actually clear in this case why the ECQ wasn’t conducted an LNP-Labor count all along). Presumably Labor preferences would go even more strongly to the Greens, to the outstanding question is who gets over the hump. The Greens currently have a lead of 19 votes, subject to the slight impact independent candidate Anita Diamond’s preferences will have.
Burdekin. Previously identified as a technical LNP gain, meaning a retain in a seat the redistribution had made notionally Labor. With a Labor-LNP throw now conducted, it has emerged that Labor has enjoyed a strong flow of One Nation preferences, and trails by only 34 votes. The seat is prompted me to add it to the summary chart below, where it constitutes a potential Labor to gain to compensate for the fact that I’ve now called Pumicestone for the LNP along with a detailed projection. The latter suggests today’s development is a false alarm for the LNP, who have a huge advantage on postals that is yet to flow through to the published two-party count.
Not featured in today’s two-party throws: LNP versus KAP in Hinchinbrook; Strelow versus Labor in Rockhampton; Johnston versus Labor in Macalister. Next to nothing happened today in Gaven and Townsville.
Sunday evening
Today’s counting has yielded two notable developments, both of them unfavourable to Labor. The LNP has roared back into the race in Townsville, performing very strongly at the city’s pre-poll centre and in the first half of postal votes. Postals have swung to the LNP by 8.9%, pre-polls by 6.8%, with the latter doubling in number since 2015. Some activity of the Defence Force that I’m not aware of may have had a bearing here.
Labor’s lead in Aspley has also withered from 2.2% to 0.6%, with postals swinging to the LNP here as well. However, that seems to most of the postals accounted for – most of the outstanding votes now are absents, which are likely to favour Labor.
I now have detailed projections for the three seats I am reading as straightforward Labor-versus-LNP contests, which are Gaven, Pumicestone and Townsville. These suggest Labor is in real trouble in Townsville and has little chance in Pumicestone, but will most likely win Gaven.
Not much has happened in the count today in Gaven, so what it says below is much the same as yesterday. In Pumicestone, Labor had a raw vote lead of 309 last night, but I was calculating this would become a 53-vote deficit when primary votes in the count were added on two-part. I then projected a 228 winning margin for the LNP on the final count, with the LNP to gain 341 on postals and 217 on absents. Once again though, postals have been bad for Labor, swinging against them 4.5%, such that I am now projecting the LNP to win by 535.
Including Gaven and Aspley, I can see a clear 44 seats for Labor; losses in Cook or Macalister I would still rate as unlikely, but they simply cannot be ruled out given the lack of hard information about preferences. That leaves them still needing an extra seat to reach the magic 47, for which their best chances are squeezing out the Greens in Maiwar or hanging on in Townsville.
Saturday evening
As I see it, in the race for 47 seats, Labor is on 43 and the LNP is on 38; there are at least two for Katter’s Australian Party, one for One Nation and one independent; and then there are eight seats that I’m treating as up in the air in one way or another. First up, there are eight seats that I’m treating as having changed hands. No doubt I’ll be proved wrong about some of them, but I figure you’ve got to start somewhere.
Aspley. Labor has held a stubborn lead of a bit over 2%, which doesn’t look like being overturned.
Redlands. Surprisingly, Labor’s only entirely clear gain from the LNP, off a swing of 6.3%.
Noosa. Independent Sandra Bolton seems to have surprised everybody by topping the primary vote in Noosa. Bolton appears to be exquisitely inoffensive, so there is no chance of the LNP chasing her down on preferences.
Nicklin. With the retirement of independent Peter Wellington, Nicklin returned home to the LNP.
Bundaberg. Gained by the LNP from Labor on a 1.2% swing, putting them 0.7% ahead, which will surely increase on late counting.
Mirani. This looks very much like a case of LNP dropping out and deciding it for One Nation over Labor on preferences. It may be within the realms of possibility that One Nation would tank so badly on late counting they finished third, in which case they might push the LNP ahead of Labor. But I’m putting that in the long shot column for now. For one thing, I’d think veteran Labor MP Jim Pearce would do okay on preferences.
Burdekin. In a seat held by the LNP, but made notionally Labor by the redistribution, this is a near three-way tie on the primary vote. If Labor drops out, the LNP wins. If One Nation drops out, I guess Labor has a chance (its preferences were directed to them). If the LNP drops out, One Nation wins. But the LNP does in fact have a slight lead, which will presumably increase on late counting. So for now I’m calling it an LNP gain from Labor.
Maiwar. Lost by the LNP, but not known whether to Labor or the Greens.
Then there are a further seven seats that I really don’t care to call, for one reason or another. I will be adding summaries of the situation in these electorates as I complete them. To start with though, here’s what I see as a summary of the situation:
UPDATE: For now, I have completed my analysis/projection of Gaven – the others I plan to do will have to wait until later today. The table below shows actual results in the first four columns, and my best attempt at projections in the last two columns. This requires estimates both of the number of outstanding votes, which involves at least as much art as science, and the two-party split. In the case of postals, for which about half the anticipated total have been counted, I have projected the results from the counted votes on to the uncounted. This is bad for Labor, as postal votes were weak for them to begin with, and appear to be recording no swing.
For other types of vote, it is assumed they will observe the same idiosyncrasies as in 2015. On this basis, Labor is projected to do well enough on absent votes to hold back the tide on postals, which largely reflects a strong Greens vote on absents in 2015.
For the other seats I’m listing as doubtful, just the briefest of rundowns for now:
Maiwar. The Greens have a raw 0.7% lead ahead of Labor in the race to finish second and, presumably, win the seat from the LNP on the preferences of the other. No absents or postals have been counted; the former should be good for the Greens, the latter bad, and there should be roughly equal numbers of each. So the Greens would seem favoured, but it’s certainly not done and dusted.
Pumicestone. Labor has a raw lead of 309 votes (0.9%) on the two-party count, but there won’t be much of it left when votes that have presently been counted only on the primary are added to two-party preferred. Postals should as usual favour the LNP, but Labor’s big hope is that the LNP tanked on postals in 2015. None of either have been counted yet.
Cook. With Labor on 39.3%, and a crush of others just shy of 20% (One Nation 18.9%, LNP 17.9%, Katter’s 17.6%), one of the latter will need a strong flow of preferences from the other two to make it home. I would expect that a Katter candidate in the final count would be most threatening to Labor, followed by One Nation, followed by the LNP.
Macalister. Labor faces a threat here from independent Hetty Johnston, but it’s a long shot — she trails the LNP 26.4% to 24.2% on the primary, which she needs to chase down with either preferences or an unusually strong late count performance for an independent.
Rockhampton. With Labor’s vote on only 31.8%, independent Margaret Strelow would seem assured of taking this if she finishes second. However, the LNP looks like bowing out before One Nation, who it had second on its how-to-vote card. So it would seem possible that Strelow will actually run third, in which case I imagine her preferences would decide the result for Labor. For all I know though, there may be a One Nation surprise lurking in wait here. Labor could wear a defeat at the hands of Strelow, a Palaszczuk-backed Labor preselection candidate who could potentially be lured back to the party, or perhaps made Speaker.
Thuringowa. The order here clearly runs Labor, LNP and One Nation about even on second, and Katter’s fourth, with the latter’s preferences presumably set to secure second place for One Nation. The question then arises as to whether LNP preferences go cleanly enough to One Nation to finish the job for them. UPDATE: They don’t – what I had thought was an ABC estimate is actually a real preference count that makes clear One Nation can’t win. So the only conceivable threat to Labor is the LNP, and that’s a long shot.
Hinchinbrook. The LNP incumbent here is on 30%, and then there’s a crush of One Nation, Katter’s and Labor around 20%. Provided Katter’s can stay in the count when the field is reduced to three, they would seem set to take the seat. Otherwise, the final count looks like being LNP versus One Nation, with Labor preferences saving the day for the LNP.
ABC’s now got 46 seats as outright Labor wins and predicting 48 in total (the two in-doubts with Labor in front being Burdekin and Gaven.)
Its still far from certain, but I’m becoming ever more confident Labor will get its majority.
ABC count showing Rockhampton win for ALP – 4% plus margin. 46 plus likely Gaven. Plus Maiwar 50/50 Greens/ALP. Plus chance still in Burdekin and Townsville at least. Premier will be relaxing a bit.
I think the Premier has been reasonably relaxed since polling day. She’d only have to see a pic of Tim getting all anxious to calm her down…
Seeing a pic of Nicholls …
the image of Nicholls with jaw seemingly wired in a grin as he spoke on Saturday will live with me for years.
Here was a man who knew his career was over assuring us that all was well.
I am rather mystified about where the ABC numbers are coming from, as ECQ has not posted any new 2CP tallies yet. Burdekin, especially, seems something of a surprise. However Strehlow’s statements regarding Rockhampton are indicative that information is available to some (at least her, in the seat she is contesting) through sources other than the ECQ website.
Outsider @ #505 Wednesday, November 29th, 2017 – 6:17 pm
Outsider,
Ms Strethlow would have scrutineers at the vote counting watching where the preferences were going as the count was proceeding.
TallebudgeraLurker, thanks for that. My real question is about the ABC’s data source. It’s clearly derived from something other than the published ECQ data (which does not show any 2CP count) – is the ABC still going on preference flow estimates, or something else? If the former, then its likely to be largely meaningless in the very close late counting.
Outsider, they’re estimates (similar to William’s above).
It seems like almost all postals have hit Burdekin, and yet the ABC is still saying there’s a Labor lead. That’s in contrast to William’s estimate. If the ABC is right, it should be gained by Labor.
So, as things currently stand, if Labor picks up all of Burdekin (ahead), Gavin (ahead and likely), Maiwar (tight tussle with the Greens) and Townsville (slightly behind but still in a tight tussle with the LNP) and assuming no McAlister type boilover THEN Labor will end up with 50 seats. No?
It’s hard to see Labor ending up with less than 47 surely …
Outsider,
I think all we mere mortals can do is wait for the official preference count to proceed. I remember waiting for the Herbert preference count in the last Federal election to be finished and stressing as it ebbed and flowed until finally Labor won.
I can’t recall if the Qld ECG put the official preference count up as it proceeds, I would guess so.
Good scrutineers are like good card counters and would have a handle on where the actual preference flow was going. They tend to crowd around the votes for 3rd onwards placed candidates looking to see where the “2”s, “3”s and “4”s etc are written on the ballot papers.
Andrew_Earlwood,
Maiwar is looking Green, given no absents have been counted yet, and they were very strong in 2015 for the Greens in the two old seats that constitute Maiwar.
I don’t have a good understanding of Burdekin, as I don’t know at what rate we can assume One Nation preferences to be flowing. Labor sources view it only as an outside chance.
Otherwise I agree – barring a big upset in Macalister, Labor is at 47.
JBL – yes, yes -got all that, but my point is that 50 seats now seems very conceivable and 47 at the least seems highly highly probable.
I do not know what figures were showing before, but ABC now shows Burdekin as LNP ahead by 338, 50.6% to 49.4%. 82.6% counted, so presume another 1500 or so votes to come in.
Wow. Sportsbet have Langbroek at $2.50. I would surprised if they went back to him, you would think by now the LNP would ready to move on. Langbroek couldn’t finish off Anna Bligh at the end of a 20 year Labor government hence they parachuted Campbell Newman from outside. Springborg, Langbroek, and Nicholls have been around the leadership of the LNP for a long time and there failure would make you think the LNP would go in a different direction.
John-Paul Langbroek
2.50
Tim Mander
2.50
Deb Frecklington
5.50
David Crisafulli
5.50
Tim Nicholls
7.00
Scott Emerson
13.00
They might go with Frecklington.
Langbroek is ineffectual and Mander too fundamentalist, although this is Qld.
[quote] Scott Emerson
13.00 [/quote]
How could Scott Emerson become Qld LNP leader? He has lost his seat of Maiwar.
While nothing that the clusterfuck of fail that is the Queensland LNP do ever really surprises me, they’d have to be mad to go make Langbroek leader again. He was dreadful!
ABC has Maiwar now showing Green-Lib 2CP count – Greens ahead 52.3 to 47.7
It’s an estimated 2CP in Maiwar. But yeah, based on reports, Greens will win it if they make the cut.
Yeah, scrutineers say either will win in Maiwar if they make the cut. And LNP scrutineers must say the same thing or Emmerson wouldn’t have conceded to an empty chair.
From what I’ve heard on preferences Labor would need to be ahead going in to have much of a chance (and that currently seems unlikely with nearly all postals done), the takes I’ve heard on preferences from the independent range from 50/50 (Green / Labor) at the best for Labor to 50/25/25 (so +0.25 to Berkman per ballot). It’s not over until the writs are signed but it’s looking pretty good from Berkman’s prospective right now.
I think Labor has a decent lock on 47 at this point, with a deceent chance of 48, and smaller chances for 49. 50 would require a lot to fall their way.
Roger Bottomley:
Frecklington seems a likely option to me. I haven’t seen much of her, but she struck me as a pretty effective communicator during the ABC’s election coverage.
She’s a Nat who seems urbane enough to appeal to inner city Libs, and being the party’s first female leader would probably give the LNP some badly needed positive buzz. She also is mostly a clean-skin – while she was a minister in the Newman government, she was too low-profile at the time for most people to really connect her to him.
Give it to Langbroek for now and six months out from the election parachute in Quirk.
ABC should be indicating on each seat page at any time whether their preference counts are real numbers or projections. Also I have no idea why ECQ stopped publishing the 2CP counts. Really hard trying to explain what is going on when the major sources of information seem to thrive on creating confusion.
{Tips hat to JA}
So I have
ALP 47
LNP 40
KAP 3
Green 1
Ind 1 (Bolton)
PHON 1
Courier Mail reporting that Macalister is back in play:
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/state-election-2017/queensland-election-results-2017-comeback-gives-alp-a-scare-in-macalister/news-story/e38905a70d09ad9bfe96b74ff56e595d
Despite Labor candidate Melissa McMahon claiming the seat on Saturday night, Ms Johnston, running as an independent, said she had moved into second position in the vote, above the LNP.
She said it gave her a strong chance of moving ahead of Ms McMahon once the final vote was tallied next week.
Labor disputes the claim that Ms Johnston has moved out of third position in the vote.
Ms Johnston said an early misunderstanding in the count awarded Labor the seat prematurely.
“The thing is that they did the nominal count between ALP and LNP because that was the obvious two to count, what they didn’t count on, though, is that the majority of preferences are coming to me,” she said.
“It’s anybodys at the minute, it could be theirs, it could be mine; it’ll be one of those that come down to the wire, I think.
“They did a full recount because on the night of the election they did LNP and ALP and chose ALP to win, but they did that same process again yesterday for me and they had me 2277 in front at that point.”
Labor insiders last night remained confident of winning the seat, saying it would take an extraordinary preference flow of more than 70 per cent for Ms Johnston to claim the seat from Labor.
Ms Johnston said because of the strong primary vote for Labor in the seat, she would lean towards supporting Annastacia Palaszczuk to form a minority government, should it reach that point.
“I think we will wait to see what happens when I’m in there, but I think it’s fair to say Macalister had a preference for Labor over the LNP, so I’d have to go down that way,” she said.
“Give it to Langbroek for now and six months out from the election parachute in Quirk.”
What could go wrong?
““Give it to Langbroek for now and six months out from the election parachute in Quirk.”
What could go wrong?”
Exit cackling…
We now have a best case outcome of LNP 40 seats. They could only “govern” with ALL independents and minor parties, including Greens and ONP, supporting them. Surely it is time to concede defeat?
For what it’s worth, I note the Green’s primary vote lead over Labor in Maiwar is now down to 11, whilst in Macalister the LNP primary vote lead over the independent continues to grow. No absent votes have yet been added to the tally in Maiwar, whereas in Macalister the independent’s share of absents counted so far is very low. The ECQ is still not providing any 2CP counts
“Surely it is time to concede defeat?”
Or at least an assertion that the ALP government is illegitimate.
” I note the Green’s primary vote lead over Labor in Maiwar is now down to 11″
Given the reports of preference flows from Diamond, ALP will need a primary lead over Greens of 150 at least, so Greens still well and truly favoured here.
Are Queensland election counts normally this slow? It’s now five days since election day and some seats are still on less that 80% counted, including two critically close ones. I realise it takes time to gather all the absent votes together under tight security, but still…five days?
@ Ante – they’ve gone from optional to compulsory voting, and there’s quite a few seats where up to 4 parties are competitive.
Voice Endeavour,
That explains why the final 2CP counts can’t be done, but not why the count of the primary votes is on such a frustrating drip-feed.
In Macalister, the green preferences will split between Johnston and the Alp, the lnp will get hardly any. So if Johnston gets 40% of the green prefs, (and remember the green card gave their prefs to her), she will wipe out the lnp lead… and that’s before the other minor party preferences are distributed. The other minors will leak more to the lnp so won’t be as effective for her as the greens who have hardly any lnp component. Although green prefs usually leak 20-25% to the lnp, that’s on a 2pp basis. If as in this case there’s an ind candidate (ie 3pp) the lnp share will be a lot less, probably around 10%. I believe Johnston is strong favourite here.
Peterjk23
IF????
Ceteris parebus, from the figures cited above you would expect maybe 1/3 of Greens voters to follow the HTV. I would expect the flow of preferences to HJ from Greens voters who decide for themselves to be low, but it obviously won’t be zero. So I’m not sure I agree that HJ is “strong favourite”, but 40% is possible.
The fact that the ALP, who have scrutineers doing indicative counts, are sure she won’t get there makes in look less likely.
Aslo a 50% ALP, 40% Johnston, 10% LNP split wouldn’t be enough. Even a 30% ALP, 60% Johnston 10% LNP split wouldn’t get her there if the rest of the Indies split evenly.
WB,
Your best case scenario for the LNP contains an error:
45 (ALP), 40 (LNP), 2 (KAP), 1 (ONP), 1 (GRN) & 3 (IND)
The above total adds up only to 92 (not 93). LNP best case scenario is 41 seats, if they’re to win Hinchinbrook against KAP.
RE The slow count: I think I read that those numbers are based on enrolment and I remember seeing earlier in the thread that turnout was rather low this election. So 80% of enrolment counted may be quite close to all votes cast.
Re: the ABC computer seat tally predictions: the projections are switched off at the moment but Antony Green has mentioned on Twitter (in reply to multiple questions) that the seat tally is probabalistic so “48” represented an estimated assessment of a win in one of Townsville and Burdekin.
Kevin Bonham
@kevinbonham
#qldvotes Hearing that an indicative throw of the 4th candidate’s prefs in #Maiwar has been done and the Greens gain 150+ vs Labor on it.
@Ante Meridian: Every close election someone complains about it being ‘slow’. There were complaints at the federal election, complaints last Qld election, and complaints in the 2014 Victorian election.
The truth is that while the profile of the progression of the count varies between jurisdictions (depending on what steps they take, in what order, etc) the results are almost always finalised at the start of the week following, usually the Tuesday (barring any recounts).
What I don’t get is why, in this day and age, they don’t run every single ballot paper past a scanner as a first step.
It may not legally substitute for a hand count but the computer would know in seconds all these unanswered questions about preference flows and the ECQ could know exactly where to do a 2CP count on the night.
If its done well then you could take it to the next level where every ballot paper gets a unique code number in the first act and the scrutineering can be done off screens.
Given the row about the Census computer fail and the allegations about foreign powers using hackers to influence elections I am surprised that people think that we should be looking at computer assisted vote counts.
I worked on elections for the AEC years ago and there is something comforting about a pile of ballot papers that can be counted by hand when there are disputes about numbers.
Areaman,
You are correct. It will likely be very close. But there is a path to victory for Johnston 50-40-10 alp/ ind/ lnp on green prefs and 25/50/25 on the prefs of the other 3 minor candidates. Because of her deterioration on the absents it must be right on the cusp though.
Between Macalister and Rockhampton, this one was always the better ind chance, but the hype was on Strelow for some reason.
Any idea why Antony doesn’t consider Macalister to be a potentially close seat based on candidate exclusion issues? Many commentators and observers appear to be of the view that this seat is not done and dusted. Strange that he’s not yet given away either Gaven (ALP) or Burdekin (LNP), but Macalister is ignored.
ross I’m not talking about voting by machine. I’m talking about the ECQ using the technology in house to speed up the process. The piles of paper remained under lock and key in any case.
I think what CC is saying is that the ballot papers are scanned and then optically input and counted.
Wasn’t that how the the elections at the last double dissolution was done? The bundles of votes are still kept away if need to be rechecked.
The Senate papers had a fairly limited range of places they could be scanned though IIRC. You’d either need to transport everything to the central district polling station after close of polls or get mobile scanning units for every booth. Thats probably why.
I guess if you were just doing basic scanning and every ballot had a random barcode underneath some kind of irreversible flap/cover (to avoid ballot matching) you could just just use a standard scanner and bar code reader.
Labor’s looking better on absents than expected in Maiwar. Actually slightly ahead of the Greens on the batch done. Probably not enough to chase down the current lead on the remainder , and the Indy’s prefs break for Berkman to ~+150. But they aren’t out yet.
The forecast is more counting with a near certainty of a recount.