Live publication of results, updated by the minute with full booth results and swings, can be found here. Commentary of the progress of the count follows below.
Thursday evening
The remarkable swing to Phelps on postals continues, with today’s batch favouring her 306-243. This means the progress of her two-party vote across the five batches has gone 36%, 40%, 45%, 52%, 55%. She also gained with the addition of pre-poll declaration votes, which favoured her 189-112. Her lead is now 38,757 to 36,974, or 1783 votes, which is probably more than the number of late arriving postals that constitute all that’s left to come. Phelps’ margin has ticked over from 1.1% to 1.2%, and looks sure to stay above 1%.
Wednesday evening
The dwindling daily addition of postals put a further nail in the coffin today, breaking 242-224 in favour of Kerryn Phelps. Her shares of the two-party vote across the four batches of postals that have been added to the count have been, consecutively, 36%, 40%, 45% and 52%. The provisional votes were also added to the count, and they were higher than usual in number and heavily favourable to Phelps, who received 246 to Sharma’s 175. Phelps’ leads is out from 1554 to 1643, with roughly 2000 postals and 250 declaration pre-poll votes to come.
Tuesday evening
The count continues to drift away from Dave Sharma, with today’s postals favouring him only 433-361, giving him 54.5% where he needs nearly three-quarters. Phelps’s current lead is 1554 votes, with maybe 3500 still to come.
Monday evening
Today’s counting consisted of finishing off the rechecking of ordinary votes. It appears 54 votes in the Paddington PPVC were reassigned from Sharma to Phelps; other than that, the effect was to cut 209 votes from Sharma’s total and 234 from Phelps’s. So evidently a lot of the action on rechecking has consisted of ruling informal votes that were initially admitted to the count. The upshot is that little has changed since yesterday, except that the window seems to have closed on a major anomaly being identified in rechecking, which was Sharma’s best hope. I had a fairly extensive look at the progress of the count in a paywalled article in Crikey today.
Sunday evening
Today’s events as they unfolded:
• Anxieties in the pro-Phelps/anti-Liberal camp that set in as the largest pre-poll voting centres recorded their votes late last night cranked up a notch in the morning as the first and biggest batch of postals were added to the count. These broke 3356-1858 in favour of Sharma (later revised to 3346-1851), his 64.4% share being fractionally more than he would likely need to rein in what remained of Phelps’s lead. Not long after, Antony Green wrote on Twitter: “No (Phelps) is not home. The difference between on the day voting and voting in advance is wider than I’ve ever seen at an election. In conversation with very senior party people today, they have the same opinion.”
• Around 10:30am or so, Sharma got a further small boost when the two Special Hospital Team booths were added to the total, collectively breaking his way by 266-54.
• After that though, the pendulum swung back. The AEC set to work on the routine recheck of the ordinary votes, starting with those booths where the preferences flows recorded yesterday appeared to be anomalous, as was keenly observed by Kevin Bonham. This confirmed that Phelps had indeed been short-changed in the Bondi Beach and Bellevue Hill booths – because, according to Antony Green, the preferences from primary votes for the Liberal candidate had been entered the wrong way around. As a result, Phelps’ 2132-1714 lead in Bondi Beach blew out to 2427-1330, and Sharma’s purported 1305-985 lead in Bellevue Hill turned out to be only 1152-1119. About half the booths have had their votes rechecked to this point, the net effect of the others being neutral.
• Then a second batch of postals went 698-467 to Sharma, or 59.9% to 40.1% – less than he would have needed even before the rechecking raised the bar.
The main votes yet to be counted are late-arriving postals – I see no reason to doubt my earlier judgement that the final number of postals will be very close to the 9392 that were cast in 2016, since the number of applications received was almost identical. That leaves maybe 3000 postals outstanding, along with provisionals and pre-poll declaration votes, of which a high-end estimate would be about 500. This leaves Sharma with about 3500 votes outstanding with which to close a gap of 1616, meaning he will need about 73%.
That’s not going to happen, so it will take the emergence of another error in what remains of the rechecking to make a Sharma victory plausible. Precedents do exist, such as the decisive 1000 votes that showed up for Cathy McGowan as she grappled with Sophie Mirabella in Indi in 2013. But if the remainder of the count proceeds normally, Sharma only seems likely to reel his existing deficit in by around 700 votes, giving Phelps a winning margin of around 900 votes, or 0.6%.
Sunday morning
To cut the following long story short: this isn’t over.
Those who were still paying attention at the close of last night’s action were thrown into a spin when Dave Sharma did remarkably well out of the pre-poll voting centres, which these days account for many thousands of votes and do not report their results into well into the evening. In particular, the 6431 votes of the Rose Bay PPVC broke 4473-1958, which slashed Phelps’ lead from 4.2% to 1.9% – creating just the slightest opportunity for Sharma to pull a rabbit out of the hat on postals.
In the last of my updates in the section below, I calculated that Sharma would need 70% of postals to close the gap, but it seems this was an overestimate. The number of postal votes issued at this by-election has been almost identical to that in 2016 (12860 compared with 12796), so it’s a very safe bet the number of formal postal votes will be around the same, namely 9329. We can also expect 500 or so provisional and pre-poll declaration votes, but it’s the postal votes that are most interesting because they skew conservative. Malcolm Turnbull did around 9.5% better with postals in 2016 as compared with ordinary votes, on both the primary and two-party preferred vote.
If that bears out this time, Sharma can expect to reduce his present deficit of 2590 votes by around 1400. However, it’s not impossible that he will do significantly better than that. Given the trend of polling and the general course of political events over the past week or two, it could be surmised he would do relatively well on votes that were cast earlier in the process. Kevin Bonham points out that the Mayo by-election is particularly auspicious for the Liberals in that Rebekha Sharkie gained a 3.5% two-party swing on ordinary votes against the Liberals, but there was actually a 5.1% swing in the Liberals’ favour on postals. No doubt this was unusual, but it does demonstrate that it would not be without precedent for postals to weigh towards Sharma heavily enough to sneak him over the line.
However, some objections have been noted to the results as currently published:
• The Rose Bay PPVC is an extreme outlier in having a primary vote swing of only 1.9% against the Liberals, where in every other booth it was in double digits (not counting the 16 votes cast through the blind or low vision telephone voting service), and this is not reflected in any unusual movement in the Labor primary vote. However, this very likely reflects the fact that the Rose Bay PPVC wasn’t in use at the 2016 election, and the “historic” vote totals provided by the AEC to facilitate booth-matched swing calculations (including those featured in my own results facility) were well off the mark. Specifically, the “historic” totals only account for 1459 formal votes, of which 983 were credited to the Liberals, compared with the 6431 that actually appear to have been cast. As such, I see no reason not to think Sharma was indeed being undersold in early assessments of the count, as it was not appreciated how much of the harbourside vote was locked up in the Rose Bay PPVC, waiting to be unleashed at the very end of the night.
• Probably more substantively, Kevin Bonham has identified curiously weak preference flows for Phelps at Bondi Beach and Bellevue Hill. These would be consistent with 450 votes that properly belong to Phelps having been wrongly placed in Sharma’s pile. If the imminent rechecking of votes indeed proves this to be so, the hill would look just that little bit too high for Sharma to claim. But as Bonham also notes, there could just as easily be other inconsistencies awaiting discovery that could tip the balance the other way.
Election night
Midnight. The last pre-poll voting centres tightened things up quite a lot – not quite enough for Sharma, but there won’t be much in it in the end. Phelps ends the night with a 1.9% lead, which would leave Sharma needing a more-than-plausible 70% or so of postals.
9.55pm. The Paddington pre-poll booth has reported on the primary vote, and it’s a better result for Sharma than the Paddington election day booths, suggesting Phelps’ current 4.4% lead on 2CP will be wound back a little by the end of the night.
9.37pm. If anyone’s still paying attention, all the election day polling booths have reported their 2CP counts now. But we’re still yet to see either primary or 2CP numbers from the four pre-poll voting centres, which should be with us later this evening.
9.02pm. None of the four pre-poll voting centres have reported yet. Other than that, there are three booths yet to report their two-candidate preferred results.
8.36pm. With 28 booths in out of 43, Phelps’ lead is 55-45, which is exactly what the Liberal internal polling in The Australian this week purported to show. Sharma’s primary vote of 39.9% is also what today’s report of Liberal internal polling in the Daily Telegraph said it would be.
8.12pm. Phelps’ lead after preferences looks to have moderated a bit, with 16 booths out of 43 counted, but just eyeballing the booths that are in on the primary but not the two-candidate count, they are largely from relatively weak areas for the Liberals like Bondi, Clovelly and Paddington. In any case, Phelps’ 54.4% obviously leaves her home and hosed. She is giving her victory speech as I type.
7.43pm. Two-candidate preferred results are coming in at a clip, with eight of them now in, and Phelps now leads 56.2-43.8. Labor’s Tim Murray has edged ahead of the Greens on the primary vote, for what it’s worth. That he wasn’t doing so earlier was another symptom of the first booths being extremely wealthy harbourside ones.
7.35pm. Now we’ve got two-party results from Bondi North and Darlinghurst East, and I need no longer fret that my results display has the Liberals in front.
7.30pm. No doubt having sixteen candidates slows up the two-candidate count.
7.28pm. Twelve booths in on the primary vote – not much point in obsessing over them individually now. Still waiting for some more two-candidate results so my display stops showing the Liberals in front.
7.22pm. Bronte and Edgelcliff added on the primary vote. Still waiting on a fourth two-party result to push Phelps ahead on two-candidate preferred, which is where she will clearly end up.
7.18pm. Antony Green calls it.
7.17pm. Bondi Beach East two-party result almost pushes Phelps ahead on the raw two-party count, which is still dominated by two strong Liberal harbourside booths.
7.16pm. Wealthy Bellevue Hill South pushes Sharma ahead on the primary vote; inner city Darlinghurst East fails to reverse it. But the Liberal primary vote is clearly still too low.
7.14pm. Bondi North in, and the pattern is highly consistent: primary vote swings against the Liberals are between 19.9% to 27.1%. That leaves them below 40% of the primary vote, which is fatal for them particularly given the strength of Phelps’ primary vote.
7.10pm. Vaucluse is in on two-party, and because the two booths to have reported on two-party are super-rich Vaucluse and Double Bay East, the raw two-party vote is deceptively favourable for Sharma. So far though, Phelps is getting 65% of preferences, and she’s actually ahead on the primary vote with five booths counted (the latest being Kings Cross Central, a leftish booth where the Liberals are down 20.2% to 25.5%).
7.09pm. Worth noting Phelps’ thumping primary vote, three to four times higher than Labor or the Greens.
7.06pm. Bondi Beach East is the Liberals’ least bad result so far in terms of the primary vote swing, but it’s also the booth where they had the least to lose. The bigger deal is that Phelps has trounced them on the primary vote, 41.4% to 29.7%.
7.00pm. First preference count in from Double Bay East: Phelps gets over 80% of them, 65 to 15, and only loses the booth 52-48. Liberals down 25.7% on primary vote in Darlinghurst East. Early days, but not looking good for them.
6.53pm. If the swing holds, Sharma ends up on 38.8% of the primary vote, which is less than he wants. But booths in are super-wealthy and not broadly representative.
6.51pm. Vaucluse a bit better for the Libs than Double Bay East – down 22.9% rather than 27.1%, Phelps on 20.0% rather than 29.5%.
6.46pm. Details of Australia Institute exit poll here.
6.42pm. So far so good for my live reporting — my swings are the same as the ABC’s.
6.40pm. We have a result: harbourside booth of Double Bay East. Liberal vote down 27.1% to 47.7%; Phelps on 29.5%. Fairly small booth with 346 votes, but an encouraging result for Phelps I’d have thought.
6.15pm. Which is a bit disappointing from my perspective, as it means I can’t give my results projections a workout, assuming as they did a Liberal-versus-Labor count in which two-party swings could be calculated. From the perspective of letting us know who’s likely to win though, it’s very likely the correct choice.
6pm. Polls have closed, and the first mystery of the night is resolved: the AEC’s notional two party count will be between Dave Sharma and Kerryn Phelps. My live results facility will be up shortly.
alias –
Google is your friend.
I agree with this, but you were somehow making the case that the “Jerusalem embassy thing” had lots of coverage, but somehow there was a coverup of Phelps’ personal situation, which is both incorrect and a complete mischaracterisation of the brouhaha over the embassy thought bubble. The embassy move would be a big deal regardless of when it happened, and would necessarily get high level coverage, tied with the reasonable suspicion that a significant foreign policy decision was being made to advantage a government in trouble in a by-election. Phelps’ religious status pales in comparison so it should be no surprise that it wasn’t as big a deal.
I’m still not sure what is making you so agitated about this particular issue.
Confessions: “The intention of pre and postal voting is to make voting more accessible to voters, not make it harder by forcing everyone (except those not able to physically vote on election day) to vote on election day.”
Postal and absentee voting has always been there to assist those who encounter physical or geographical difficulties in getting to the polling booth on election day. But the new system of pre-polling seems to be the AEC effectively saying: “You can vote anytime that suits you in the weeks leading up to election day.” This change totally cuts across the concept of an election campaign period which allows voters the opportunity to weigh up the claims of all candidates.
It’s a development which seems to me to sit all too well with the growing polarisation of the political debate in which people have less and less interest in even listening to what those with different perspectives have to say.
Meher Baba:
I agree with Confessions on this one.
Prepolls encourage higher turnout by making voting easier for people who find it difficult to get to a polling booth on on the day, whether due to work/family commitments or disabilities or illness or what have you, or, just don’t feel like listening to obnoxious HTVers arguing with each other as they make their way into the polling booth. Forcing a vote on the day, at a physical booth, heavily disadvantages certain demographics – those who work weekends, those with disabilities, those who live significant distances from the nearest polling booths, and so on.
I don’t see any reason who people need to experience the entire election campaign before they cast their vote. Loads of people vote without paying the slightest attention to the campaign or the candidates, or are so rusted-on that nothing will make a difference to their decision, or just do a donkey vote. If someone wants to cast a vote before the campaign has played out, that’s their call, just as it would be their call to just ignore the entire election and vote for the person with the funniest name. If something happens after they’ve done their prepoll that makes them regret how they voted, presumably they won’t make the same mistake next time.
Using optimistic numbers i see its possible for Phelps to win, but think its more likely Libs will now.
If there 3929 more postals to count, bringing total to 9,392 (same total as during 2016), and the remaining votes favor Libs 10% above election day results (as they did in 2016), then Libs will gain 785 votes and they need 884
for updated discussion see Kevin Bonham http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com/ and Ben Raue http://www.tallyroom.com.au/35823 with information on possible counting errors at a couple of booths
Fess – we work all day saturdays so always have to pre-poll/postal
Sprocket_
“Like in other jurisdictions, postal votes should be allowed – but must be received by COB Friday before the poll.”
A bit harsh IMO. There are still many parts of the world in which the mail truck, boat or plane arrives pretty infrequently, and this is what the post-election day deadline is meant to deal with.
As I understand it, when votes posted from within the electorate don’t turn up until many days after polling day, the AEC is inclined to subject these to pretty heavy scrutiny and ask questions of Australia Post. A postmark would presumably not be the most difficult thing in the world to forge, and the AEC is well aware of this risk..
alias @ #832 Sunday, October 21st, 2018 – 11:07 am
Alias whether Phelps is “observant” or not is irrelevant. Converting to Judaism is a long, hard and discouraged process by the Rabbinical Council and lasts approximately three years. It’s not a little splash of water like the other proselytizing Abrahamic religions and you are done. Phelps is now Jewish on all counts, there are no different levels of Jewishness.
I really want more info about Rose Bay… one PP booth has potentially swung an entire by-election.
Asha Leu: “Forcing a vote on the day, at a physical booth, heavily disadvantages certain demographics – those who work weekends, those with disabilities, those who live significant distances from the nearest polling booths, and so on.”
The system that applied until a decade or so ago certainly did not force such people to vote at a polling booth.
Again, I do not have a problem with this if it enables as many voters as possible to actually vote in elections. As to the relevance to political campaigns, most voters sail through entire election campaigns blissfully unaware of the specific stances of their candidates on particular issues.
The problem doesn’t really appear to be that people can vote early, but that early votes aren’t counted at the same time as regular ones.
MB:
What’s the difference, though. Either way, you’re casting a vote before the campaign has finished.
The key word here is allows. There’s no obligation for voters to spend the entirety of the election campaign weighing up the claims of all candidates, they simply have the opportunity to do so if they desire.
That’s a genuine concern, and something that tends to worry me too, but I really don’t think prepolls are at all a contributor to this, nor would banning them aleviate the problem.
If we really wanted to encourage more people to vote on the day, I would suggest making it a bit less of an irritating experience for those who aren’t political tragics. One step in the right direction would be finding a way the alleviate the quantity of HTVers that populate booths – especially the ones who insist on chanting campaign slogans, swarming voters as they line up in an attempt to influence their vote, and getting into public arguments (I’ve witnessed honest-to-god screaming matches) with the HTVers from the other side. As well as avoiding the queues, the main reason I’ve seen people give for using prepoll booths is that they tend to have few of these irritants.
(I should add that I’m not criticizing ordinary, polite HTVers who simply offer a HTV card and leave it at that, but the dipshits who act like street hawkers in a third world tourist trap.)
The twelve-day-long polling period is not an excessive amount of time. It is a good thing to make voting more convenient for people.
Voters should get to decide whether the last 12 days before Election Day are so earth-shatteringly important that it is imperative that they absorb every minute of those days before making their decision.
MB:
You’ll have to forgive my relative youth here (I reached voting age in 2006.) What was that system?
MB:
You’ll have to forgive my relative youth here (I reached voting age in 2006.) What was that system?
Jenauthor:
I don’t normally work on Saturdays, but early vote to avoid the queues on election day.
Confessions: “Again, I do not have a problem with this if it enables as many voters as possible to actually vote in elections. As to the relevance to political campaigns, most voters sail through entire election campaigns blissfully unaware of the specific stances of their candidates on particular issues.”
Well, I’ll give you a practical example of what I don’t like about it. And this is coming from someone who -although I was a huge fan of Paul Keating as Treasurer – loathed the backstabbing process through which he became Prime Minister and thought he performed very poorly in the role.
In the 1993 election, it was only as the campaign unfolded that the full extent of Hewson’s unsuitability for the role of PM was clearly demonstrated to the electorate. I think this was a good result for democracy: a relatively unknown and ostensibly impressive candidate was subjected to the pressure of an election campaign and found wanting. While I was no fan of PJK as PM, he came out of the campaign as clearly the better option.
But we know that the swing back to Labor was very late, and I am highly confident that, if the current system of widespread early voting had applied back then, Hewson would have become PM.
Latest update as at 11:51am on the AEC website was posted half an hour ago (11:22am) and seems to indicate a very comfortable buffer for Phelps now.
What is going on?
Wentworth
Latest update: Sun Oct 21 2018, 11:22:20 am AEST
Votes counted: 70,892 out of 103,810 enrolled (68.3%)
Booths reported on primary vote: 41 out of 43
Booths reported on two-party vote: 41 out of 43
Two-candidate preferred
# % Swing
Kerryn Phelps (Independent) 35,044 51.9%
Dave Sharma (Liberal) 32,454 48.1%
Asha Leu: “You’ll have to forgive my relative youth here (I reached voting age in 2006.) What was that system?”
Postal and absentee voting.
AE: at a guess, the AEC has withdrawn the 2PP results for Bellevue Hill and Bondi Junction and is recounting them.
MB:
How’s that ultimately different from prepoll voting, though? Either way, you’re casting a vote before election day.
On a closer examination of those 11:22am update results there are no prepoll or postal vote results. Where can I find them?
Seems odd.
Asha Leu: “How’s that ultimately different from prepoll voting, though? Either way, you’re casting a vote before election day.”
But you had to make a claim to the AEC that you were unable to vote at the polling booth on election day. Now you can just waltz in whenever suits you and cast your vote. I don’t think it is good for our polity and I have explained why in terms of the example of the 1993 election..
Eh, I think it’s a case of swings and roundabouts. Sometimes the opposite happens, and a last minute gaffe or black swan event gives the less suitable candidate the advantage needed to win.
That’s not what ‘s on the page I get from the AEC Andrew. Still just the 884 margin.
Its still an 884 lead. Don’t think you are looking at the correct figures.
I’m just clicking on the link at the top of this thread to go through to the AEC site. As I said – seems odd.
meher:
We will never know whether more people early voting would’ve delivered the 1993 election to the coalition, and in my view it doesn’t matter anyway. Election campaign timing is no reason to make it more difficult for voters to actually vote in elections.
Confessions: “We will never know whether more people early voting would’ve delivered the 1993 election to the coalition, and in my view it doesn’t matter anyway.”
I thought I was the only poster on this forum who generally doesn’t care much which party wins an election.
Going straight through to the AEC website and via the hyperlink gets me to the same table as everyone else is talking about 884 vote margin at this stage.
Still. Seems odd.
And isn’t that a wonderful thing? Unlike in other supposed democracies where people are turned away if they cannot produce their credentials.
Sorry meher, but I’m not going to die in a ditch over an election which has not only been well and truly decided, but happened before I was even of voting age!
Why is it taking so long for the AEC to process the 1266 envelopes they have already eceived but were unprocessed at 10:30am. They managed to get through over 5,000 this morning before then but we have heard nothing since then.
Again. This seems odd.
i dont really understand why esteemed experts like Green and Bowe were so certain of Phelps winning last night. I mean its not like the skewed liberal vote in the postals are anything unusual. Im not sure why they wouldnt have worked out the buffer required by Phelps to see off the expected surge in postals and made a call based on that. Or is there something else that was unforseen here?
A ballot paper.
it appears there are some counting errors so despite the narrowing still a Phelps win
Adrian,
I think the experts had accounted for the postals. It was the huge surge in pre-polls that caught everyone off guard.
Well if the 2001 election had been held before September 11 and before the arrival of a boat called the Tampa, Kim Beazley would have probably become Prime Minister.
If Kerryn Phelps had embarrassed herself last week then the votes cast the week before would be net improving HER position in the count.
Luck plays a big role in every outcome.
These kinds of “If this…. then that” statements about election timing really just amount to “If my aunt had testicles she’d be my uncle.”
The only relevant issue is whether we want voting to be convenient for people. Giving people ten days of weekday pre-polling in addition to Saturday Election Day makes voting easier. That is a good thing.
On thing is for certain, Joe Spagnolo, Sunday Times in Perth political commentator clearly has no time for Malcolm T.
In a puff piece, “Bishop still has a chance to be PM”, he excoriates Turnbull thus………”The fact that former member (of Wentworth), fled to New York and did not stick around to campaign and help the Liberals retain Wentworth did not help.”
He claims this was “….not a time for revenge”………….and further if he “………truly bled blue, he would have put on an Academy Award performance and campaigned in Wentworth.” Spagnolo then sticks the boots in…………”Instead, he stayed away. It was a disgraceful and petulant act…………..”
I have always thought Spagnolo was at the shallow end of the political commentator end of the pool and this rant certainly demonstrates this.
I wondered if Mr Spagnolo was thrown out of his job, whether he would stay around to help whoever replaced him into settling into his new position? I think not.
To cap it off, he turns his annoyance to younger Turnbull, Alex, claiming his actions were ………..”worse………………….who was clearly out to avenge his father’s political death – told voters to vote Labor.”
So on the one hand, according to Spagnolo, Turnbull had been put to the sword but his corpse was necessary to help get his replacement over the line.
As I said, why this guy gets the political gig at the Sunday Times or anywhere is beyond me.
Re: Malcolm’s resignation and absence on the campaign trial:
1. Would it have actually helped the liberal cause? Or rather, just emphasised the stupid bastardry that lead to his demise even further? I’m going out on a limb and speculating that it would be more likely the later.
2. Remind me – how much campaigning did RJL Hawke do in the Wills by-election or the 1993 General Election. From memory not much (if any) in either. Understandable IMO and also I think beneficial to the Labor cause for the 1993 GE campaign.
That ballot paper reminds me of the referendums in the ‘80’s when you could write NO in the box, and Dams next to it – no matter what the question – and still be formal
Sprocket_ @ #849 Sunday, October 21st, 2018 – 11:28 am
Did you know that with our wonderful and modern post office, it can take a month for mail to be delivered between two adjacent towns in NSW?
I kid you not. 25+ days is not unusual 🙁
No real blame can really be attributed to anyone calling early on this one.
The massive change in voting character between the election day count and the pre poll is pretty close to unprecedented I’d wager. And that again goes to the absolute implosion of the Libs in the last week I believe.
If Morrison had just fucked off for a holiday Sharma would have had a clear win.
All the psephs models had the postals favouring Sharma well in hand. It is this big change in voting in the pre poll numbers numbers that has caught them out. But we haven’t really seen a government campaign against itself so comprehensively before so the psephs can hardly be blamed for not building a Morrison fuck up deflator into the programming.
Confessions
“And isn’t that a wonderful thing? Unlike in other supposed democracies where people are turned away if they cannot produce their credentials.”
I agree that it’s a wonderful thing that Australian voters are not automatically compelled to produce ID.
However, for the reasons I have already given, I do not think it is a wonderful thing that people who would have no difficulty in fronting up on election day are permitted to cast a vote almost three weeks beforehand.
Here’s another thought: in my ideal political universe, governments would focus mainly on governing up to the day the election is called. Instead of that, we are now increasingly getting Federal governments that seem to operate constantly in campaign mode. There are a number of reasons for this, the most important of which appears to be the dreaded 24/7 news cycle. But developments like the AEC-facilitated circumvention of the traditional election campaign period doesn’t help.
Re the 24/7 news cycle, I continue to hope that one day soon a political leader will come along with sufficient guts to say “I’m going to ignore the 24/7 news cycle because it only matters to a small handful of political tragics, all of whom are rusted-on supporters of one side or the other. I’m going to redirect the time and resources wasted on jumping around to the tune of the press gallery towards other ends.” John Howard was the last PM to adopt this approach to any significant extent, only abandoning it in 2006-07 as the pressure began to mount on him.
Maybe Shorten, if he wins a big majority, can head in this direction. Although both he and the leadership of his office would need to impose a strong discipline on his own people, and I don’t know that Shorten has sufficient power to do that. Rudd was the last political leader to possess that much power, but, as everyone knows, he was totally addicted to the 24/7 news cycle. Gillard and Turnbull were always in too weak a position to fight, as is ScoMo. Abbott was briefly in a stronger position, but he was totally guided by Credlin, who loves the news cycle almost as much as does Rudd.
The 24/7 news cycle is effectively the political class talking to itself. No wonder Australian voters are ever-increasingly turning to independents and minor parties.
Yep. AFAIK, the predictions by Green, Bowe, et al, all took into account the usual advantage the Liberals receive in postals.
Mega George made that point yesterday. Obviously Morrison’s repeated appearances in Wentworth served only to remind voters what had happened to Turnbull – talk about an own goal!
AEC have announced a new postal count will take place mid-afternoon.
I support pretty much anything that makes voting convenient without reducing the security of the process. Pre polling essentially on demand is ‘a good thing’ to my mind.
We’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I’m all for making voting more accessible to voters, not forcing people to turn out only on election day itself. If this means there are increasing numbers of people who choose to take up the availability of early voting, then I do not have a problem with it – at least they are voting, not spending hours in a queue only to give up because they can’t be bothered waiting and choose to cop the fine instead.