At the end of every second month, this site issues a plea to its readers for the donations it needs to keep it going/make it worth my while. On this occasion I’ve held back a few weeks to strike while the iron is at its very hottest. Regular readers would be aware that I’ve been working hard for money throughout the campaign, with extensive daily blog posts to supplement the vast federal election guide that covers the contest for both houses from every imaginable angle, and all-but-instantaneous updating of the famous BludgerTrack poll aggregate.
The best is yet to come, however, because on Saturday night and beyond the site will offer a live results facility that I flatter myself will put all its rivals in the shade. All the proof you need of this can be found on the 2019 results page that I’ve been running for testing purposes, and which currently preserves the results as they were at around 10:30pm on that fateful night.
As you can see, it consists of an entry page summarising the current state of the count in all 151 seats, which links to individual results pages for every seat including projections of the final two-party result and win probability estimates, a table of booth results encompassing two-candidate preferred and the primary vote with tabs allowing you to toggle between raw votes, percentages and swings, and booth results maps with colour-coded dots and numbers pointing to the results of each booth that you can click on for a full set of results.
If it’s booth results you’re after – and if you’re at the level of interest required to follow this site, it almost certainly will be – this feature will, I believe, be the only game in town. Unless its changed its practices, the Australian Electoral Commission site doesn’t actually provide booth results on the night, offering no more than tables identifying which booths have reported on the primary vote and two-candidate preferred. Nor do I believe any other media outlet’s results facilities will feature results in such detail, and in the unlikely event that they do they will not be provided in such a user-friendly format.
If you think I’m deserving of more from this than satisfaction at a job well done, donations can be made through the PressPatron “become a supporter” button that appears in the blue bar across the top of the page, and the buttons that appear at the foot of each blog post. If you are having technical problems with the donation facilities, please drop me a line at pollbludger-AT-bigpond-DOT-com and we can work something out.
