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Saturday, May 28
As I should have noted yesterday, the AEC has published all-important three-candidate preferred counts for Brisbane and Macnamara, where the results hinge on who will finish second and third out of the Labor and the Greens. With “88% of the total expected ballot papers” accounted for in Brisbane, the Greens lead Labor by 29.55% to 28.56% (with the LNP on 41.89%), which is sufficient for the ABC to have called the result.
Macnamara on the other hand is exquisitely close three ways, with the Liberal candidate on 33.56%, Labor member Josh Burns on 33.50% and Greens candidate Steph Hodgins-May on 32.93%. This suggests 46.9% of minor candidate preferences are going to Liberal, 35.9% are going to the Greens and only 17.2% are going to Labor. For the Greens to win, two things need to happen after the remaining 6500 or so outstanding votes are counted: they need to close their 495 vote deficit against Labor, and the Liberals need to not fall to third.
The first of these seems entirely possible. If the outstanding batches behave like those already counted, they should make up around 200 out of 3300 pre-polls and 100 out of 1100 declaration pre-polls. If the 300 or so provisionals behave like they did in 2019, they should make up a further 40 or so. Then there’s the COVID votes, of which there are about 1000, and which are apparently also expected to favour the Greens. Postals are diminishing in number, but each batch continues to be better for the Greens than the last, to the extent that today’s was the first on which they gained on Labor.
As for the Liberals, the 3CP count has them 545 ahead of the Greens and 50 ahead of Labor. There seems no particular reason to think they will either gain or lose in large degree relative to Labor out of any of the remaining vote types, so everything that was just said about the Greens relative to Labor applies to the Greens relative to Liberal as well. The question is whether the chips just happen to fall in such a way that Labor gains 50 votes or so at their expense. I am flying blind here with respect to the COVID votes, and also with how many postals can be expected – postals can arrive until Friday, and I can’t really tell you how many tend to trickle in in the second week.
All of this amounts to bad news for Labor in its quest for 76 seats, with Brisbane now out of the picture and the odds most likely leaning against them in Macnamara, which I for one thought they had in the bag earlier in the week, and which my results system is continuing to call as Labor retain due to its inability to think in three-party terms. The likely retention of Lyons only gets them to 75: they now need a late break in their favour in Gilmore or, less likely, Deakin. A great deal hinges on the absents, declaration pre-polls and COVID votes in these seats, on which we remain none the wiser, with no progress in either count today.
Friday, May 27
My results system is now registering Ryan as a Greens gain from the LNP, as the fresh two-candidate count finally advances enough to tip the probability dial over 99%. Similarly, Wannon has been restored to the Liberals after further booths were added in the Liberal-versus-independent count that was begun yesterday, and Nicholls is now being called for the Nationals as Rob Priestly’s independent bid falls short.
Labor aren’t dead yet in Deakin, where rechecking today gained them 138 on postals and 37 on ordinary votes, while costing the Liberals 169 and 30. However, there was little in it in today’s batches of absents, which broke 236-232 to Labor, and declaration pre-polls, which broke 463-462 to Liberal. Labor will perhaps need about 55% of what’s outstanding to reel in a Liberal lead that today shrank from 1032 to 655.
The contention related yesterday by Antony Green that late counting would favour the Greens in Macnamara was borne out in that the latest batch of 1951 postals were much stronger for them than earlier batches and they also performed well on the first 965 declaration pre-polls, particularly relative to Labor. Their situation will apparently continue to improve from here, but the secret of the final result remains hidden in the preference flows, on which I can offer no hard information.
It seems rechecking of ordinary and postal votes turned up 157 extra ordinary votes for the Liberals in Lyons, but little else. The first absents from the seat broke 696-621 to Labor. That leaves Labor’s lead at 678, down from 784 yesterday. For the second day in a row, the only progress in Gilmore was rechecking, which cost the Liberals 41 votes and Labor five. Counting will continue over the weekend.
Thursday, May 26
The ABC is calling Lyons for Labor after the correction of errors gave Labor a 582-vote fillip on ordinary votes. My system isn’t quite there yet though, in part because each batch of postals so far has been better for the Liberals than the last, the latest breaking 1508 (56.1%) to 1178 (43.9%). However, it may also be because the ABC has formed a more considered view than I have as to how many outstanding votes remain.
I have been assuming for some time that Labor will win Macnamara, which together with Lyons would put Labor over the line to 76 seats and a majority. However, Antony Green has dropped by in comments with an account of his own decision to hold off on such a call, informed by Labor member Josh Burns’ own lack of confidence. Specifically, both Labor and the Greens believe the Greens will enjoy a surge when absents and “an estimated 1000 COVID votes” are added to the count. On top of anything else, this is the first intelligence I have received as to how many COVID votes might be expected, here or anywhere else.
The very first absent and declaration pre-polls were added to the count today, mostly in Deakin, which respectively got 455 and 449 (there were also 787 absent votes added in Lingiari). The absents in Deakin broke 251-204 to Labor, but the pre-polls went 249-200 against. However, there was a turn in Labor’s favour on postals, which broke only 1493 (51.1%) to 1427 (48.9%) in the Liberals’ favour, compared with 58.8% to 41.2% on the previous batches. With the Liberal lead at 1032, Labor will need everything to go right on the remaining postals (perhaps about 3000), outstanding absents and declaration pre-polls (seemingly around 3500 apiece), COVID votes (around 1000, I guess) and provisional votes (a couple of hundred).
I’m not sure of the details, but rechecking of ordinary votes in Gilmore today was to the advantage of Andrew Constance, who gained 25 while Labor lost 149. No new postal votes were added to the count. Another 4095 postals in Brisbane didn’t fundamentally change the situation described here yesterday, with Labor continuing to hold a 0.7% lead over the Greens on the primary vote that I don’t think will be quite enough for them when preferences are distributed. Liberal member Celia Hammond conceded defeat to independent Kate Chaney in Curtin, perhaps because the latest batch of postals sharplhy reversed earlier form in breaking 1955 (52.3%) to 1780 (47.7%) to Chaney.
My system has withdrawn Wannon as a confirmed Liberal retain, not because such a result has become objectively less likely, but because the AEC has concluded Labor will run third and begun a fresh two-candidate count between Liberal member Daniel Tehan and independent Alex Dyson. This has so far accounted for only about 10% of the vote, and is presently giving Tehan a fairly modest lead of 52.2-47.8. Based on the relationship at polling booth level between the Liberal primary vote and the share of preferences, I am expecting this to inflate quite substantially and do not believe Tehan is in trouble.
Wednesday, May 25
My results system today called Dickson for the Coalition, bringing them to 51 seats, to which I think it more than likely that Casey, Menzies, Cowper, Nicholls and Moore will shortly be added. Labor remains on 74, and I don’t think there is any real doubt they will further gain Bennelong. Batches of postal votes are being added to the count in diminish number, but we still haven’t seen any absents or declaration pre-polls, which we can at least make broad guesses about based on past performance, or the COVID-19 electronic assisted voting results, which are anyone’s guess.
Here’s the latest from the seats that may add further to the Labor count, any one of which will get them to a majority:
Brisbane. The result remains at the mercy of unavailable information on how minor candidate preferences are flowing between the Greens, Labor and the LNP. A source familiar with the matter has passed on an informal tally based on observation of pre-poll and postal vote counting that suggests around 50% of preferences are flowing to the LNP, 32% to the Greens and 17% to Labor. If this is accurate, Labor will need a primary vote lead of about 1% when all the votes are in to remain ahead of the Greens during the preference distribution. Currently the gap is 0.7%, having increased today from 34 votes to 528 following a batch of postal votes that was actually weaker for Labor than the previous. However, that’s likely to be sent down rather than up by absent votes, on which Greens do well. So it would appear the Greens remain favourites.
Gilmore. Labor had a better batch of postals today, which only favoured the Liberals by 754 (51.3%) to 715 (48.7%) compared with 5895 (54.5%) to 4913 (45.5%) from the previous batches. With further unfavourable adjustments from ordinary vote rechecking, that increased Andrew Constance’s lead only from 104 to 112, with postals now set to slow to a trickle. This isn’t quite the lead Andrew Constance would have wanted ahead of what’s likely to be a Labor gain when absents are added.
Lyons. There seems to be an improving trend here for the Liberals on postals, the latest batch of which broke 1103 (55.6%) to 882 (44.4%) their way compared with 2966 (50.9%) to 2857 (49.1%) against them previously. If the remaining postals break the same as this latest batch, there’s going to be next to nothing in it.
Further:
Curtin. Liberal member Celia Hammond has brought Kate Chaney’s lead on the raw count inside 1%, but today’s postals were actually a bit weaker for her than previous batches, favouring her by 1075 (55.3%) to 868 (44.7%) compared with 6729 (59.4%) to 4605 (40.6%) previously. They were also notable fewer than number, and have still left her 1640 behind. As noted here yesterday, the 2019 result suggests absents are unlikely to favour her. The dynamic may be a little different this time given the redistribution has pushed the boundary substantially northwards, and many absent votes are cast just outside an electorate’s boundaries, though I can’t specifically think why this would make them a whole lot more favourable to the Liberals.
BTW – Brisbane has gone Green according to ABC. Now only 3 seats in doubt.
….and on queue we have just had a batch of 1,000 odd absentees in Macnamara….the Greens have outperformed Labor by 4.82%….well, well unders what it would need to be for them to have any chance. Run rate required has just gone over 25 an over with 6 overs left (i.e. they need 150 runs in 6 overs)
Absurd it still hasn’t been given by the ABC
“Griffsays:
Saturday, May 28, 2022 at 2:07 pm
The Revisionist @ Saturday, May 28, 2022 at 1:58 pm
“What’s upset you, Griff?”
I was enjoying the serenity here ”
Fair enough Griff, perhaps we need a rolling thread for electoral system discussion as well?
Perhaps somewhat more likely to get dragged into the ditch!
Current 2CP count for Macnamara missing only about 3,000 postal votes
26,783 Labor
26,528 Greens
26,213 Liberal
Mrodowicz at 2.05
At the risk of pissing Griff off…
I guess multi-member electorates might work, as long as the AEC can vary the number of members in electorates within the same jurisdiction. For example, NSW currently has 47 MHRs. Seven electorates of 5 members plus two electorates of 6? The criteria for AEC decision-making on which electorates have 6 members and which 5 would need to be very precise to avoid accusations of gerrymandering.
So much serenity…
Scrutineers tell me no more counting in Gilmore after about 3pm today.
Looking at Gilmore, recounting of South Nowra PPVC has brought Constance’s lead back to 227.
As yet no absent, provisional or declaration (or Covid phone?) appearing in the count. Would expect some heavy scruitineering going on with these.
With 4000 absents, 4000 dec prepolls, hundreds of provisionals and 1000 Covid uncounted as well – all of which the Greens are expected to outpoll Labor – I can see why the current 3CP margin is still too close to call it.
The Greens’ main issue will be that the Liberals are in third place, and expected to do by far the worst on all the above votes, so the 3000 counted postals missing the 3CP count just doesn’t seem like enough to put them in the final count on first glance to me.
My projections had a LIB v ALP count with the Greens just missing out on the final count, but based on only 3000 postals missing from the 3CP count and another 9000+ uncounted votes where the Liberals will come third and Greens will come first, it’s looking like an ALP win via ALP v GRN count now.
I prefer that outcome I think, because as a data nerd it means we get both an official ALP v GRN 2CP result and an official ALP v LIB 2PP result published. I’d prefer that over just an ALP v LIB result.
Do they publish both 2CP and 2PP per polling place and vote type, if that happens? Or just 2CP, and then only publish an overall 2PP result?
Just on the Covid phone polling, this appears to be run solely out of Head Office in Canberra. So they would tally votes centrally, and presumably send out to the provinces.
The AEC said yesterday that the 75,000 odd phone polls ‘were being added from today (Friday)’ but these have yet to appear in any of the Covid polling places – for which one exists in each division eg
EAV COVID19 Macnamara PPVC – polling place
AEC National EAV2 Centre, 10 Mort St, CANBERRA ACT 2601
Other than anecdotal reports, does anyone have any hard data on this class of vote?
Trent
The Greens will consider coming 1st on the count in Macnamara as a win for them.
The fact that Labor will win the seat on Liberal preferences is a minor distraction 🙂
And a recount of Bateman’s Bay PPVC has cut a further 13 from the Gilmore Liberal,lead – now 214
Constance’s lead now down to 214 but i can’t see where the votes came from
See previous post OC
The Revisionist @ #256 Saturday, May 28th, 2022 – 3:05 pm
It looks like there’s also something like 4000 absent votes left to count.
Antony Green is providing the numbers among the votes counted so far. He’s not saying that there’s only 3000 votes left to count, all of them are postals, and then the winner will be declared.
There’s also declaration pre-poll and provisional votes left to account for. And the telephone voting.
The only “absurdistan” here are the people who believe they know this stuff better than the true experts.
To be fair sprocket I’d see it as a very encouraging result too if I were them.
It makes Macnamara a bit more like a Wills & Cooper contest but much more winnable for two reasons:
– The ALP v GRN margin is likely to be closer than in those 2 seats
– More paths to victory next time because the higher Lib vote than those 2 seats means even a small ALP to LIB swing would make it an even more winnable GRN v LIB contest
If the ALP v GRN margin is small enough too, say under 4%, then it also means whether or not a redistribution swapping Prahran for Caulfield happens or not makes it winnable on both sets of boundaries.
Macnamara was always a long shot and I think the result has exceeded their expectations regardless of the outcome.
This thread is Poll Bludger at its best – thanks all for the great contributions about the late count.
Just wondering if the hive mind can give a rough calculation of the percentage of remaining votes Labor needs to win any of the last seats standing, namely Brisbane, Deakin, Gilmore & Macnamara, along with a rough likelihood of that happening.
My guess is that Labor is pretty certain to win Macnamara and has a pretty good shot in Gilmore, but only an outside chance in either Brisbane or Deakin. Have I got the right of it?
Thanks heaps.
“The only “absurdistan” here are the people who believe they know this stuff better than the true experts.”
***
Well said.
No matter how Mac plays out, thanks for keeping us updated, Mr Green! Your analysis is highly valued and appreciated.
I just updated my little Macnamara projection spreadsheet and am getting the following now after recent absents (again this doesn’t actually factor in the Covid phone votes yet):
– LIB 33.5%
– ALP 33.4%
– GRN 33.1%
(Take it with a grain of salt in light of the recent 3CP stats Antony provided, more on that below)
The Revisionist asked on the last page what the absents and/or dec prepolls would need to break at for the Greens to overtake Labor in my projection model. I have played with some numbers and if the remaining dec prepolls & absents both break 1% worse for Labor and 1% better for Greens compared to now, and the 1000 Covid phone votes break the same as the absents, it puts them within 20 votes of each other.
Additionally, my model estimates that there are still another 5000 postal votes to extend Labor’s lead. I think that’s being generous to Labor, there may only be another 2000-3000 postal votes to go because out of the 5000 remaining, 4000 have not been returned yet.
However, I say all this with caution because my model is based on the 48-34-18 preference flows; and those most recent numbers provided by Antony Green look much weaker for the Liberals than what’s in my projection. That’s probably directly related to the postal issue I discuss above. So I think it’s looking increasingly possible that the Liberals finish third, whereas my projection has them finishing first. Who knows though. Those unreturned postals are a big question mark I think.
In summary, while I think everyone agrees this is an “ALP Likely” (very likely), it’s still just way too messy and has too many question marks to call it. I think Antony is absolutely right in not putting his reputation on the line for an early call when there’s really no benefit in doing so; and while Revisionist is 99% likely to be correct that Labor retain it, I think the closeness of the final 3PP count will certainly justify the seat not being called yet, and nobody will be saying it should have been called earlier.
Been There says:
Friday, May 27, 2022 at 10:34 pm
Upnorth
I’m hiding here not saying anything.
Like you I’m hoping the Green/Labor war doesn’t come over to this line.
Thanks, all contributors on this channel as well as the main man WB.
# Please note I have a large investment on Labor getting a majority so I’m looking for the best up to date results in the crucial seats.
中华人民共和国
Same cobber. I had one bet on a Labor Majority. Might be good I reckon with Macnamara.
On other matters I wonder if the QLD State LNP are now rueing putting the Greens ahead of Labor at the last State election. Sure it got rid of Trad in South Brisbane. But it allowed the Greens to get a greater beachhead in Brisbane.
With the loss of Ryan and Brisbane to the Greens that will grow and other Labor and Liberal Local, State and Federal seats will be at risk. The Liberals certainly have more to lose IMHO
It’s only one person who seems to think he knows better than Antony Green. To everyone else, it’s obvious that being 95% or even 99% certain isn’t enough to call the seat along with majority government for Labor, particularly when the nation’s media networks are following your every word.
@Andrew Bartlett – huge congrats on playing a massive part in the Greens winning Brisbane! Wouldn’t have been possible without that 3% swing you got in the seat at the last election. Truly outstanding work from the QLD Greens. Greensland will never be the same again!
Absurdistan hard to predict, the boundaries are always changing and it’s never clear who the sitting member is.
Gleno, you have quoted a comment half an hour after I deleted it…weird stuff
Also, unlike you, I haven’t declared my expertise in a lame appeal to authority so perhaps leave the personal stuff out of it?
Meanwhile, another 1,000 absentees counted….this things done
There are only two divisions where the outcome is in the balance – Gilmore and Macnamara
Greens have claimed Brisbane is the last hour and they would only have done this upon getting the all clear from their best scrutineers who’ve been overseeing the vote counting.
The LP would have to be favoured on current numbers in Deakin
The ALP need one more seat to claim a majority on the floor (but a working majority it certainly wont be if they take the prize of the speaker-ship) and I see a potential irony ahead: that seat 76 could come down to the great unknown of COVID19 phone votes !
Even with the height of Australia’s COVID19 emergency now seemingly past, the testicles of COVID still want to loom large over the nation !
The Revisionist @ #273 Saturday, May 28th, 2022 – 4:39 pm
First of all, do you think that, just because you’ve deleted a comment, there’s no record of it? I use the PB Comments plugin, and it saw your nonsense post, and began to respond. It takes time to post when you’re collecting information rather than just jumping to conclusions.
Second, I didn’t declare any expertise. What I did was demonstrate how nonsense it was that you declared it a foregone conclusion based on an argument that seemed to assume the only votes left to count were a few postals. I then pointed out that you practically called Antony Green, the most respected and most experienced of psephologists, absurd for daring to not declare the result a foregone conclusion when there’s so much left to come in.
I’m not exactly sure why you think a few more absent votes would make it somehow “done” now. But then, considering you thought it was “done” then, as well, I’m not at all interested in your predictions.
If you happen to be an expert, it should be clear to you that the 3CP is extremely close, and absents, dec prepolls, provisionals and COVID votes all can enable the Greens to overtake Labor. It’s looking more like the Liberals could instead fall into third place from those results, from being first currently – so logically, there’s a point in between these where it’s possible that Liberals/Greens are 2nd and Labor instead falls to third on the 3CP. It’s a delicate balancing act – and very unlikely to be the final result, but still possible.
Banging on about it being “over” just because this is an unlikely situation doesn’t show expertise, but bluster. Recognising that 5% or 1% chances are possible is a properly considered position.
Another 1000 dec prepolls just dropped in Macnamara.
These ones are more than 2% better for the Liberals than the last batch, and about 1% worse for Labor. Interestingly; the “Other” vote on dec prepolls is around 15% so we can assume most of that will go back to Libs & Greens.
Plugging those new numbers into my projection has actually reduced the projected gap between Labor & Green to only 150 votes (0.16%) and slightly extended the Liberals’ lead, both of which help the Greens’ chances.
So in my view nothing has changed. It remains “ALP Likely” but definitely hasn’t been put away because every subsequent batch has been closing the gap, and better for the Greens than projected, and as Adda says, if the currently known 3CP numbers look like there is increasingly a chance of the Liberals falling to third, then somewhere on that journey they also have to pass through second and that’s where it gets interesting.
Nexus7 @ #274 Saturday, May 28th, 2022 – 4:43 pm
I don’t think we can rule out Deakin just yet. There are some unknowns that everyone is still waiting for clarification on:
1. How many EAV votes there will be, and how they will break compared with other votes.
2. How many Absent, Provisional, and Dec Pre-poll votes there will be (at most, we have a vague ballpark right now).
3. Whether late postal vote arrivals will be similar to the ones that have arrived so far (some indications seem to be that later postals are more favourable to Labor and Greens).
Antony Green @ #254 Saturday, May 28th, 2022 – 2:56 pm
Presumably, a lot less than 3000 postals will actually turn up. Is there any estimate (based on the typical return rate) of how many valid postal are likely to turn up?
Gleno, you declared you were a mathematician on another thread as you were tangled up in what was a philosophical discussion
I didn’t “practically call Antony green “absurd”
The reason I think it is done is that the greens need an implausible share of the remaining votes and, with each plausible release, need an even more implausible share
I don’t care what you think of my predictions. I don’t remember seeking your validation?
Should Labor end up with exactly 76 seats, does anyone see any merit in the idea of tapping Andrew Wilkie on the shoulder to take on the speakership? Would there be much chance of that happening?
How will the 75,000 Covid phone votes get scruitineered? Asking for a friend.
@Work to Rule: Those numbers posted only refer to the votes that had already had the primary vote counted at the time; so basically out of all the primary votes that have already been counted, only 3000 haven’t had the 3CP count done.
In addition to those votes, the following still hadn’t been counted at all:
– Over 4000 absent votes (about 1000 have since been counted);
– Over 4000 dec prepoll votes (about 1000 have since been counted);
– Around 1000 Covid phone votes;
– Around 1000 provisional votes;
– There were still 1200 postal votes received but not counted at all (1000 have since been), and another 4000 postal votes still awaiting return
I’d be interested to know as well though how many out of those 4000 postal votes not yet returned we can expect to come back, and by when?
@The Revisionist; based on those above numbers of outstanding votes still to be counted, and given the current rates that dec prepolls & absents are breaking, only around a 1% swing from ALP to Greens in how they are breaking would be required to close the gap now. I don’t think that’s particularly implausible. Unlikely? Yes, but not impossible enough to call the seat.
I’m not quite sure what the rush is to have the seat called, when there is no benefit in doing so. There is only risk to the reputations of those involved, if the unlikely does in fact happen. There’s no reputational risk in holding off a call on a seat this close.
@Worktorule
It’s 3,000 postal votes that have been counted but aren’t included in those 3cp numbers
The most recent batch of postal votes in Macnamara broke this like:
26.7% LIB
28.5% ALP
33.2% GRN
The tide has definitely turned on the postal votes. They are now closing the gap between Greens & Labor, rather than extending Labor’s lead.
But in bad news for the Greens they are putting the Liberals further behind Labor.
EDIT: This is interesting, plugging those new figures, and the remaining postal votes breaking at the rate of the last batch into my spreadsheet now has the following 3PP order!
1. GRN 33.40%
2. LIB 33.38%
3. ALP 33.22%
Only 190 votes between first and third so realistically could finish in any order! Right now the projection is in that *tiny* window where they have overtaken Labor, and the Liberals still haven’t dropped to third, in which they would win. But the smallest variations in any direction could change that (all of which do favour Labor).
This race is fascinating!
“But in bad news for the Greens they are putting the Liberals further behind Labor.”
This has been the problem all along, Trent
The kind of extraordinary and sustained batch performances the Greens need will necessarily draw too much from the Libs
@The Revisionist I agree that the nature of the contest definitely favours Labor.
But the point everybody has been making is.. If that window *does* exist in this journey of the Greens rising to first place and the Liberals falling to third place (which is exactly how the numbers are currently breaking), the Liberals do have to pass through second place as well and the number of votes that will be returned is unknown enough that it could be either before or after the Liberals fall to third, then why would anybody risk their reputation to call the seat?
At this point, it’s looking like the key question is whether Liberals can be realistically above Labor, and not whether the Greens overtake Labor. Not sure exactly how many postals there are to go (I know there’s the 3000 not included in Antony’s 3CP estimate, at minimum) but getting a hefty lead from those is probably required, and that’s not looking like it can be done.
The alternative is that the gap is very small (probably needing some counting errors, by these numbers) after absents and wildcards of COVID, declaration prepoll etc end up being helpful to the Liberals. That would be highly against expectations, but this is the first election with the COVID phone votes so one can’t know in advance how they would go.
@Adda, I agree 100%.
I’m predicting 1 GRN, 2 ALP, 3 LIB but I think to categorically rule out the possibility of 1 GRN, 2 LIB, 3 ALP as an impossibility to the point of calling the seat is premature.
The very high ‘Other’ vote coming through in these recent counts (which we know favour the Libs around 3-1 over ALP on preferences) in addition to Labor underperforming will keep the ALP/LIB votes pretty close.
The Revisionist @ #280 Saturday, May 28th, 2022 – 5:03 pm
Yes, I’m a mathematician. I have some knowledge of voting systems, as it’s an interest of mine. However, when it comes to predicting results as they come in during an election, I’m going to defer to the people who have expertise and an established, incredible track record on these things.
Antony Green says it’s too close to call it? Then it’s too close to call it.
And yes, you literally said that Antony Green refusing to call it meant “this has entered the deepest reaches of Absurdistan now.”
Which means you’re calling Antony Green’s judgement that it wasn’t yet time to call it absurd.
I don’t see how you can conclude that it’s implausible. A reasonable estimate suggests that there are more than 6000 votes left to count, not counting the 3000 postals that hadn’t been included in the 3CP. With the difference between first and third, according to Antony Green’s information, being 570 votes, we’re talking about a difference of somewhere between 6-10% on 3CP needed to move third place into first.
And that’s very possible. Greens are doing 6% better than Labor on absent PV. Liberals are doing 7% better than Labor on postal PV. Indications suggest that both are outperforming Labor on preference flows, which account for 9.26% of the vote so far – based on the numbers we’ve heard, this could, alone, account for a big chunk… after all, indications are that preference flows are “18% to Labor, 34% to the Greens and 48% to Liberal”. That represents Greens gaining 1.48% and Liberals gaining 2.78% more than Labor. So half the distance might have been made up by preference flows already.
Considering that my best estimates are that Liberals need to get maybe 6.3% extra from the remaining count, and Greens need 2.8%, and the preference flow factor would make up almost half of those differences, basically Labor getting noticeably less than 25% primary vote from the remaining batches would be enough (assuming Liberals break 33.7% and Greens break 31.5%) for Labor to be in third.
Likely? Probably not. Possible? Yes.
For what it’s worth I have a lot of money riding on a Labor win in Macnamara – I have been betting in-play during the postcount! My confidence is sufficient for me to go on 1.05 odds but not for 1.01.
Looking at Macnamara absents and Dec prepolls, Liberals are trending below ordinary and well below postals –
Trent, I suspect there is something wrong with your modelling
This is what I have as shares based on now over half the absentees and dec pre polls counted (based on revealed preference flows)
Greens 32.802
Labor 33.539
Libs 33.658
Thanks all for their informed contributions on these last few down to the wire races! It’ll be really interesting to see how things pan out in Gilmore. Deakin seems like a bridge too far, but this late count seems to be throwing up a few surprises. In terms of Labor on 75 or more than- I’m personally relaxed about either outcome, though expect some other people would see it differently.
Another 2000 absent votes just got counted, and in my projection it has helped the Greens’ chances again. I now get the following 3PP projection:
1. LIB 33.46%
2. GRN 33.36%
3. ALP 33.18%
That’s the second update in a row where new figures have given me a LIB v GRN 2CP.
As I said, my biggest unknown – and probably the most questionable statistic in my modelling – is the remaining number of postal votes. I’m using the full “Issued” number minus 10% for not returned, rejected & informal which is assuming another 4230 postals to count.
But I can reduce that figure to as low as 1800 more postals to count, and still get the same order as above (just with smaller margins).
On the reforms proposed on the previous comment page:
MMP that crosses state boundaries is DOA because the required referendum would have to pass in every state that could potentially have its minimum and/or proportionate representation in the House of Reps diminished. That means said referendum could fail even the mainland voted unanimously in favour (which the mainland wouldn`t).
The Nexus is highly unlikely to be abolished. Every party, other than the Coalition and ALP, would loudly oppose it and with such a wide distribution of parties across the political spectrum, the no vote would probably win in every state.
“This is what I have as shares based on now over half the absentees and dec pre polls counted (based on revealed preference flows)”
I think your modelling may be underestimating the votes remaining.
Only 1752 out of 5238 dec prepoll envelopes have been processed so far.
There are also still 4648 postal envelopes to be processed (depending on how many get returned).
You’re right that there are now only 1464 absents to be processed though.
That could be the difference in our modelling, you may be working from how many “awaiting processing”, I’m working from how many “issued” minus those already processed (but then factoring in that a % won’t be received). That could explain why your numbers haven’t been showing that there are enough votes left for the Greens to catch up.
The number “received” has been steadily increasing in all categories too (other than provisional where it matches the number issued) so I have some confidence that the number that will be received will be significantly higher than what is currently showing as “awaiting processing”, which excludes envelopes not yet received.
Trent, those shares I provided are just estimates based on the current reported shares (and revealed preference flows).
Your modelling is predicting the Greens will recover another 0.56% when the only category it over performs on is near exhausted ?
There doesn’t seem to be many votes left to count in Gilmore – and not enough absentee votes that may favour Labor – for Phillips to claw back a 200+ deficit on Constance.
Prove me wrong (please)!
Dr Kevin Bonham…
Saturday 4 pm: Antony Green has released a 3CP with Labor 26782 Green 26528 Liberal 26213, which is missing about 3000 postals. We don’t know yet if these are typical postals of the strong for Liberals, weak for Greens variety, but if they are they will push the Labor vote out to a lead of around 620 making it very difficult for the Greens to catch up. However even if they are that strong, they will not put the Liberals close to Labor (about 340 behind). Labor is also so far beating the Liberals on both absents and dec prepolls. If the remaining postals are lefter that puts the Greens closer but the Liberals further behind. Awfully close but I do not see a path in which Labor gets pushed into third.