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.
You know, I wouldn’t be opposed to requiring voters to provide a reason for casting a prepoll. However, I also think “I work that day”, “I’ve got (this or that non-work commitment) on that day”, and even “I can’t be stuffed spending a chunk of my Saturday standing in a queue while sad partisans in brightly colored shirts scream at each other” should be considered perfectly valid reasons.
I certainly cannot disagree with any of this.
I also think the banality of the 24/7 news cycle and how obsessed our pundits are with “the game” over policy or governance are far more of a contributor to voter apathy and disengagement than being able to cast a prepoll a couple of weeks early could ever be.
AE: “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.”
The RWNJ commentariat’s attack on Malcolm for choosing not to campaign in Wentworth is one of the most pathetic cases of straw-clutching I have ever seen. I don’t think those who are putting this argument forward truly believe a word they are saying.
How would this campaign have possibly worked in practice? Anywhere Malcolm went, he would have attracted massive media and public attention. The cameras would have recorded passers-by making comments along the lines of “you should still be the PM in my book”. Journalists would have been constantly sticking microphones in his face and asking him how he was feeling about the way he was stabbed in the back, how he thought ScoMo was going, whether Phelps was correct that the Libs had a major problem in dealing with climate change, etc, etc.
The whole circus would have completely overshadowed ScoMo’s efforts to establish himself in his new role. If Sharma had won, then it would have been portrayed as a massive personal victory for MT, and would have reflected very poorly on the party for having got rid of him.
remember 2016? Basically everyone was calling a minority govt on the night, only for half a dozen or so QLD seats that had already been called for labor, to come screaming back to the libs on postals.
I just thought the commentators should have learned to be a little more prudent by now – just sayyin.
William, my attempt to edit a couple of typos in my last comment somehow wound up getting it marked as spam. If you’re around, can you please approve it when you have the time.
Cheers
Yeah Trumble staying schtum helped rather than hindered the Libs.
Can you imagine the press questions to him in the wake of the ‘it’s ok to be white’ vote?
“I’m told @kailamurnain and 10 ALP scrutineers have showed up at the AEC scrutineer centre. I don’t think it’s to boost their 11.5% primary #phelps #WentworthByElection”
If this report is correct, Murnain has made a bad judgement call in showing up herself. There’s nothing wrong with the ALP discreetly lending Phelps some experienced scrutineers (that’s been done before), but leading ALP figures should be keeping well away from this situation IMO. Labor doesn’t want to look as if it is desperate for Phelps to win: that’s not good for Labor, and it certainly isn’t good for Phelps.
BAA – Agree. It seems like too often we hear a seat called as won, and then 5 min later it’s suddenly back in play. Does my head in. I don’t want to hear a seat called as won until it’s like a 95% probability or something.
ALP wanting to defeat the Liberals – even by assisting an independent – is hardly news. Murnain turning up to scrutineer doesn’t appear to be a problem. No need for the secret squirrel routine when your tactics are public knowledge.
Looks to me like Phelps is safe.
Sharma is getting 64.38% of the postal vote TPP which isn’t enough to get him over the line with 1,266 postal votes remaining to be counted.
Is there any update on the misallocated preferences mentioned by William earlier?
The right want to have their cake and eat it.
Turnbull was deposed because they thought he couldn’t win the next election, but they still wanted him to campaign because they wanted to win the by election.
@ meher baba…
I see nothing wrong with ALP sending scrutineers to check ballot papers. ..all ballot papers. The Libs certainly will.
Do we want an accurate count ? If there are ballots allocated to Sharma or vice versa , that should of gone elsewhere it is only just it be rectified.
I’m still waiting impatiently to hear how the recount of those two polling places Kevin Bonham mentioned is going. It could be critical in deciding the final outcome the way things seem to be going.
Yup – I don’t have a problem with ALP scrutineers being involved, and the only people who will care are partisans and political nerds like us.
grimace
That 1,266 is envelopes already received but not yet counted. It seems the AEC will do that at 3pm. There are still over 5,000 envelopes that could come in the mail in the next two weeks! Maybe 4,000 will actually arrive (just a guess). Most will probably arrive this week. Long way to go.
Grimace , there is at least 5000 postals still to come.
Grimace
My understanding is that there is still a shitload of postals still to be returned.
sonar: “@ meher baba…
I see nothing wrong with ALP sending scrutineers to check ballot papers. ..all ballot papers. The Libs certainly will.
Do we want an accurate count ? If there are ballots allocated to Sharma or vice versa , that should of gone elsewhere it is only just it be rectified.”
Please reread my post. I did not suggest that there was anything wrong with Labor sending scrutineers. I merely suggested that (if the report is correct) the state secretary of the party should not have shown up along with them.
Big A Adrian. Green’s models do account for pre-polls and postal votes, but his modelling assumes that the swing in the prepolls will be the same as the swing in the booths already counted, and the postal votes will be as different from the general votes as they were last time. What this modelling cannot account for is a situation like the Rose Bay Pre Poll Centre where the apparent swing against the Liberal candidate was much much lower than the swings in other polling booths.
Antony Green alluded to this issue with modelling last night in the broadcast when he was commenting on the results so far when the 2CP vote for Phelps was 54%. He said that when the pre-polls came in it might lower the 2CP to say 52%, but the 54% gave enough of a buffer that one could be confident that Phelps had won. And he would normally be correct. But Rose Bay was such an outlier that it has overturned Green’s well-based expectations.
Grimace , there is at least 5000 postals still to come.
____
Or is it that of all the postal vote forms issued some 5000 have yet to have been received. I suspect many of these will not have been sent in by electors.
“I merely suggested that (if the report is correct) the state secretary of the party should not have shown up along with them.”
When the ALP tactics are out in the open, why not be transparent about it when it comes to scrutineering?
I don’t think this is a ‘bad look’ to anyone other than liberal partisans. Nobody else cares.
KB was following the misallocated preferences Grim , there might be more information on his site.
Grimace there are still more postals to come than the 1266 already received but not yet counted. How many we will only know when they arrive which can be up to 13 days after the election. There are about 5900 envelopes still out there but a lot them will not have been completed and posted. We will probably waiting a while to be sure of a result.
What the Libs could do now to turn things around —
1. “We’re meeting our Paris commitments in a canter. So, although it won’t make any difference to what we’re doing, we’re going to increase our commitment by X.”
2. Tap certain members of Parliament who have been there basically forever on the shoulder and tell them they’re not running next election. Then preselect women. (This may bring on the barney of all barneys, but I reckon a leader with a bit of cojones could come out of that particular barney ahead – I doubt many voters are emotionally attached to Abetz, for example).
3. Come out against Adani. This could be done in a more than sorrow than in anger way – the proponents have had plenty of time to show that the project stacks up, and after all, the government doesn’t believe in giving handouts.
4. Now the cuts to big business are off the table, do a bit of a cash splash in targetted areas.
@meha baba….
It doesn’t matter who they send. It wouldn’t bother many people if Bill Shorten turned up. No one got upset when Brandis scrutineered for the Libs and he was the acting AG.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-13/election-2016-brandis-scrutinising-herbert-vote-count/7625790
According to Kevin Bonham, maximum 7,164 postals to count of which not all would be received.
Today’s Mumble taking issue with media reporting about last night’s vote:
https://insidestory.org.au/thats-what-national-polls-are-for/
The reason the ALP scrutineers have arrived.
Laura Jayes
Verified account
@ljayes
20m20 minutes ago
More Laura Jayes Retweeted Sky News Australia
There’s a discrepancy issue at 2 booths – Bondi and Bellevue Hill. The Greens did unusually well at Bondi but it was Phelp’s worst preference share.
Labor think greens preferences were data entered incorrectly. @SkyNewsAust
For some mysterious reason, the AEC website is still stuck on 10:30:05 AM update, although they were previously updating every 300 seconds = 5 minutes.
Only just now have a pop-up saying they were updating, but no update to 10:30:05. So looks like they are updating, but have no new numbers.
Phelps still leading by 884 votes.
What could be happening?
“Grimace there are still more postals to come than the 1266 already received but not yet counted. How many we will only know when they arrive which can be up 13 days after the election. There are about 5900 envelopes still out there but a lot them will not have been completed and posted. We will probably waiting a while to be sure of a result.”
I reckon about half of the 5900 postal ballots issued will be returned. Moreover, those who have left it to the last minute to post are probably not traditional postal voters, but folk who have “left it to the last minute”. They are less likely to be rusted on tories in the same way that religious Jewish voters are – who, being experienced postal voters would have sent in their vote very early (and would have already been received and counted by the AEC).
Moreover, these ‘last minute’ postal voters would have been exposed to the full ScoMo campaign of the last week. Going out on a limb, I’d say that the conservative bias will be considerably less with the outstanding postals than those already counted.
Further to the late postal issue – I recall that in the 2016 GE the first batches of postals counted in the contested marginals (Forde, Flynn, Capricornia, Hebert) strongly favoured the Libs, but postals received after Election Day – although still favouring the Liberals – broke much closer to 50-50. Indeed I think I recall that in the last two days of counting in Herbert Labor was behind, then ahead – with the lead changing right up until the last batch of postals actually broke to Labor.
I thought the record ‘swing’ was being carefully reported as being against a sitting government?
Indeed I think I recall that in the last two days of counting in Herbert Labor was behind, then ahead – with the lead changing right up until the last batch of postals actually broke to Labor.
That is correct Andrew. One can see the effects of the the coalition’s final week clusterfu@k on ordinary votes vs postal and pre poll.
Kevin Bonham reported at 12.20 on his live site that he still expects the re-count to find significant errors at two booths he has identified, which would lift Phelps margin by about 900. I just hope he is right.
darn: “Kevin Bonham reported at 12.20 on his live site that he still expects the re-count to find significant errors at two booths he has identified, which would lift Phelps margin by about 900. I just hope he is right.”
I struggle to see how he wouldn’t be right, particularly in relation to Bondi, where the published results suggest a huge leakage of Green votes to the Libs, something that didn’t occur at any other booth.
AE: re postals. The political lore I’ve heard has always had it that the earliest and very last batches of postal votes tend to favour the conservative parties more than those that arrive in between. The theory goes that the earliest votes tend to come from incapacitated aged people and those on remote properties, and the last batch includes a big component of defence personnel posted overseas, but the votes received in the middle tend to come more from working age people who are compelled to vote by post for a variety of reasons.
But this is possibly less true now that working age people have the option of pre-poll available to them.
NE Qld:
[‘I thought the record ‘swing’ was being carefully reported as being against a sitting government?’]
That’s the crux of the matter. I don’t care whom ultimately scrapes over the line; they’re both Tories. But the swing against the Morrison Government is monumental, giving rise to nervous nellies on the Treasury Benches taking stock and asking: “Why didn’t we support Mal?”
Bob katter lists his demands to maintain confidence in the Government.
Laura Jayes
Verified account
@ljayes
16h16 hours ago
More
Katter’s demands
1 Govt loans for farmers
2 Hughenden Irrigation Scheme
3 Action on diabetes & malnutrition
4 No more privatisation
5 Proof of profitability for ‘Hells gate irrigation
“Do it or face the consequences”
“I do not say these things by way of a threat”
“the last batch includes a big component of defence personnel posted overseas”
I can see how that may play out in an army town like Townsville, but I wonder about Wentworth. While our main navy base is located in the middle of the electorate and Victoria Barracks (Second Divison HQ) is in Paddo, I don’t think – what with property prices and high rents – that there are actually many ADF personnel who are on the Wentworth rolls. Most of the Navy Families for instance will be in Defence Force Housing in Nowra and the surrounds of Jerevis Bay. There are also not many Army personnel stationed in Victoria Barrcaks on overseas deployment at the moment either.
AE: I’m suspect you’re correct about Wentworth. The trend for late postal votes to favour the Libs was explained to me in relation to nation-wide figures rather than in terms of individual electorates.
Antony Green tweeted.
After much digging around, I’ve worked out the following. The AEC is currently re-counting the Bondi Beach, Bellevue Hill and Vaucluse polling places. At 3pm they will begin a count of and additional 1,200 postal votes. The result will be clearer or closer by tonight.
Katter’s demands…Hughenden Irrigation Scheme
Please God, no. It’d be cheaper and more efficient – not to mention far less environmentally-damaging – to fill several C17s with $50 notes and air drop them across Far NQ.
meher baba @ #939 Sunday, October 21st, 2018 – 12:56 pm
I’d pay to see that.
Perhaps a few facts are worthwhile to clarify the situation with votes which remain to be counted. 12,788 postal votes were issued for the by-election. 6,890 have been received back, of which 5,624 have been processed so far. At the last (2016) election, 12,792 postal votes were issued, of which 9,392 ended up being counted (as William has already pointed out in his post, although he transposed the last two digits). So with the number of postal votes issued this time being remarkably similar, we might also expect around the same number to come back. So there should be around 3,800 more postal votes counted.
Other vote types include an unknown number of provisional votes (issued where someone turns up to vote but isn’t on the roll or is marked as having already voted). In 2016 there were 330 in Wentworth and they didn’t favour the Coalition as much as other voters, which is usual. The AEC website shows 214 ‘declaration pre-poll’ votes issued, which I think may be pre-poll votes issued at the AEC divisional office rather than at pre-poll voting centres.
I see Katter has dropped his demand for multiple deepwater ports in the Gulf of Carpentaria – must be mellowing with age
Have some fun with this medical quiz. I snagged 44/49.
https://twitter.com/QuizlyCo/status/1045100712387063808
From the AEC
‘Fresh scrutiny’ of votes counted last night also well underway today. Polling places votes undergoing this check include Bondi Beach, Double Bay, Bellevue Hill, Padd’n Central, Darling Pt & Bronte. These are NOT recounts–also happens all seats at fed elections by law #Wentworth
Bored with the count BK?
I do recall Antony Green later on last night saying that he thought the count would come back and then stabilise around 52.
Kevjohno
Not bored – just like to multitask. I am also watching a good Polish drama at the same time. It’s a bit difficult with the subtitles though.
The “Rose Bay outlier” is getting more attention than it deserves. The AEC re-allocates historic votes from abolished polling places in an opaque manner. For example, the Bellevue Hill booth has an extra 4,500 historic votes added to it, the historic votes of unused polling places in Randwick, Surry Hills and Sydney Town Hall. I didn’t use the AEC figures so I have a 10% bigger swing in Bellevue Hill than either the AEC or William, and I think my value is more accurate.
As for Rose Bay and Paddington PPVCs, I have no idea where the AEC derived the historic votes as both were new pre-poll centres. It looks like they split and re-allocated the Sydney Town Hall and Randwick Town Hall PPVCs, and they also altered the history for the two Rose Bay polling places for reasons I’m unsure of. I suspect the odd swing in Rose Bay PPVC is due to unrealistic historic votes being allocated to that polling place. They gave the Rose Bay PPVC a lower historic Liberal vote than the two Rose Bay polling booths which doesn’t make a lot of sense.