Late counting

Click here for full display of House of Representatives election results.

Adrian Beaumont update at 11:50am Saturday: I wrote a long article on the Senate for The Conversation yesterday.  I believe Labor is likely to gain five seats from the Coalition.  Labor’s national primary vote in the Senate is slightly higher than in the House.

Friday

Sorry to disappoint Senate fans once again, but I’m kicking my promised post on that subject down the road for another day. Meanwhile:

Grey. By general acclaim, this should be added to the watch list, though my system is still calling it for Liberal because it’s giving independent Anita Kuss next to no chance of making the final count ahead of Labor. However, the AEC’s incomplete 3CP count has it very close (something may be amiss here though, because percentages are provided that don’t add up to 100%). I’ve tried making use of those figures in my projections, but what they are coming out with doesn’t accord with talk I’m hearing of scrutineers’ reports, which is that Kuss is doing a lot better on preferences from right-of-centre sources than I’m allowing for.

Bradfield. The Liberal lead fell from 237 to 209 mostly due to postals breaking 260-215 in favour of Nicolette Boele (maintaining an unbroken run of improvement for Boele across six batches of diminishing size, from 41.0% to 54.7%). The first batch of out-of-division pre-polls went 472-465 to Gisele Kapterian, who also made a net gain of ten on re-checking. I’m expecting about 1500 more each out of absents and out-of-division pre-polls, 200 provisionals, and let’s say another 200 late-arriving postals since there have already been more than I was anticipating. Boele will need about 53% of them, when there seems no particular reason based on the preceedent of 2022 to expect them collectively to lean one way or the other.

Kooyong. Monique Ryan’s lead fell from 724 to 661 as the first batch of absents broke 984-942 to Amelia Hamer, who also made a net gain of nineteen on re-checking. That’s probably over half the absents accounted for, and the remaining postals are unlikely to be appreciably helpful for Hamer. Her hope lies in out-of-division pre-polls, of which I had previously been suggesting 3000 could be expected, but after closer observation I believe it is more likely to be 4000. Others things being equal, Hamer will need about 58% of them — in 2022 the Liberals got 48.2%, which was 2.7% better than they did on ordinary votes, suggesting 50.2% if the pattern holds this time.

Bendigo. The two-candidate Labor-versus-Nationals count is taking its time catching up to the primary vote count, but Labor leads by 1.2% on what’s been counted, I’m projected them to a lead of 0.7%, and those who have been following the situation more closely than I have expect them to hold out.

Longman. The LNP lead is down from 289 to 231 after a second batch of absents broke 268-214 to Labor and the first out-of-division pre-polls broke 361-320, redressing by a 361-320 break in the latest postals to the LNP, the latter having exhibited little of their usual tendency to improve for Labor in later batches. I expect there will be a further 1700-or-so each of absents and out-of-division pre-polls, which will close the gap with about 100 to spare if they behave as they have so far, which they may or may not do. Here as elsewhere, there can’t be many more postals outstanding.

Bean. The first absents broke 820-679 to Labor, cutting independent Jessie Price’s lead from 195 to 54. That should be most of them — there should only be enough outstanding to exactly account for the independent lead if they behave like the first batch, though as I keep stressing, absent batches can be a bit variable. I would expect about 1200 postals, though since both batches so far have broken about evenly, that fact doesn’t offer much of a guide. That likely leaves the matter to be decided by how upwards of 2500 out-of-division pre-polls go — that absent votes and, to a lesser extent, pre-poll voting centres favoured Labor is presumably encouraging for them.

Bullwinkel. Things continue to trend Labor’s way here, their lead increasing from 333 to 634 after absents broke 595-364 in their favour, postals went only 143-142 the other way, and re-checking of early votes gave them a net boost of 71.

Thursday

I promised a review of the Senate a few days ago that hasn’t been forthcoming, but that will hopefully be rectified this evening, and I promise it will be worth it. Today’s developments from another place:

Bradfield. Nicolette Boele has suffered a blow in her already difficult struggle in chasing down Gisele Kapterian’s lead, with the first batch of absents breaking 477-427 against her, reflecting an unusually weak flow of preferences to Boele. This more than cancelled out rechecking that cut 50 votes from Kapterian’s total and 17 from Boele’s. Postals are now breaking about even, today’s batch going 243-238 to Kapterian. Kapterian’s lead is now 237, out from 215 yesterday. Boele now needs to hope for much better from around 2000 outstanding absents (not impossible, since these can vary from batch to batch depending on where they are sourced), out-of-division pre-polls (less likely) and what I presume will be a couple of hundred late arriving postals.

Kooyong. The odds on Monique Ryan holding out shortened after today’s postals broke 1966-1958 her way, her trajectory over three batches being 37.9% to 42.0% to 50.1%. Together with the effect of minor rechecking changes, Ryan’s lead has gone from 723 to 724, leaving Amelia Hamer to hope for something unusual to happen on maybe 1000 outstanding postals (which if anything seem likely to favour Ryan from now on), 3000 absents (which should also favour Ryan if 2022 is any guide) and as many out-of-division pre-polls (here at least Hamer can probably count on a few hundred votes).

Ryan. The AEC’s indicative three-candidate count is more or less complete, and finds Greens member Elizabeth Watson-Brown leading Labor’s Rebecca Hack by 30.44% to 29.79% in the race to make the final count and win the seat ahead of the LNP on the other’s preferences. I have used these numbers to revise the flow of lower order candidates’ preferences between the three in my projection, which hasn’t made much difference to what is now a 74.7% probability estimate to the Greens, since the changes involved a drop for the LNP and an increase for both Labor and the Greens. My model tends to get too conservative in estimating probabilities for leading candidates at this stage because, in the absence of hard information on how may votes remain to be counted, it errs on the high side.

Menzies. The first favourable batch of postals to Labor, breaking 1039-902 and pushing the lead out to 1300, marks an appropriate occasion to draw a line under this one.

Longman. Labor are hanging in here after the first batch of absents broke 383-280 their way, together with their usual modest dividend from provisionals, which broke 127-87, collectively cutting the LNP lead from 471 to 289. However, my system was clearly in error earlier today when it projected a high probability of a Labor win – how prescient it proves in continuing to lean slightly in their favour (now that I’ve replaced its dubious projection of primary votes with the raw results) remains to be seen.

Bean. The fresh two-candidate count between independent Jessie Price and Labor has caught up with the primary vote count, and it finds Price leading 48,353 to 48,158. If I were using the implied preference flow here I would be all but calling the seat for Price, but the truth is I have no idea what the outstanding vote types might do in a race involving an independent with no history, so I’m sticking with my existing preference estimates for no other reason than that the very close contest they project seems about right.

Bullwinkel. An already tough fight for the Liberals got harder with the first batch of absents breaking 524-429 to Labor. The long delayed two-candidate result from the Lesmurdie North booth also broke 402-316 Labor’s way, boosting their lead from 86 to 333.

Wednesday

I have obtained information from the AEC on which booths have gone into its incomplete three-candidate counts, resulting in meaningful revisions to my projections in the following seats:

Ryan. The 3CP count finds the Greens are under-performing my model on estimates from lower-order candidates, increasing their risk of having Labor closing the narrow primary vote gap and excluding them from the final count, in which case Labor will win the seat. Specifically, the Greens’ win probability is in from 79.6% to 64.0%.

Flinders. Here my three-way preference estimates were apparently about right: replacing them from the ones that can be inferred from the 3CP count increases the Liberal win probability from 87.3% to 89.2%. The shift probably reflects the fact that I now think there slightly more of a chance that independent Ben Smith will fail to make the final count, in which case Liberal member Zoe McKenzie’s win is certain. Even if he does make it, my system deems her victory very likely, projecting a two-candidate result of 52.1-47.9. However, this continues to be based on preference estimates — the AEC is not conducting a Liberal-versus-independent throw, though it may feel inspired to do so if the 3CP ends up confirming that Smith will make the count. Failing that, we will have to wait for the full preference distribution.

Richmond. Lower-order preferences are flowing a lot more strongly conservative than my model had counted on, in this case extinguishing whatever chance the Greens had of getting ahead of Labor to make the final count.

Two further seats warranting special mention, as I’ve retracted my system’s calls:

Bean. After continuing to mistrust my projection based on a still incomplete Labor-versus-independent preference count, I have reinstituted a two-candidate projection based on preference estimates, judiciously tweaked to reflect what the count seems to be showing. It had already withdrawn its call of the seat for the independent before I did so, and it now reckons it to be lineball.

Bendigo. I’ve done the same thing here, such that it is no longer calling the seat for Labor, as it was for a time today. But it still finds the seat leaning in their favour.

Elsewhere:

Bradfield. Gisele Kapterian only increased her lead today from 178 to 215, as postals followed their usual pattern in getting less conservative the later they arrived, in today’s case breaking only 495-468 (51.4%, compared with 58.3% of all previous). By my reckoning there should only be about 400 to come, though my reckoning might be out — it assumes 79.2% of postal vote applications will yield formal votes, based on what happened here and to a lesser extent in North Sydney in 2022 (postal votes can arrive up to two weeks after the election and still be admitted to the count if they were sent early enough). By this stage though, the bigger factor is absents and out-of-division pre-polls, of which there will be about 3000 each, together with a handful of provisionals. They respectively leaned independent and Liberal in 2022, but this can depend heavily on where the boundary is, since many of them are cast in booths just outside the electorate, and these have changed substantially with the redistribution. All you can really say here is that you would rather be ahead than behind.

Kooyong. After only rechecking was done yesterday, Monique Ryan’s lead shrank today from 1002 to 723 as postals broke against her by 2281-1649. However, this was a marked improvement for her on the first batch (42.0% rather than 37.9%), and rechecking of early voting centres improved her position by 332. I expect there to be a further 5000 postals, and the improving trend to Ryan would need to halt for them to get Amelia Hamer ahead. The precedent of 2022 suggests Ryan will gain about 300 on absents and break even on out-of-division pre-polls, but the caveats just noted for Bradfield apply here also — as does the concluding remark.

Done and dusted, or just about:

Goldstein. Postal vote batches continue to get less bad for Zoe Daniel, but are still breaking strongly against her and inflating a Liberal land that now stands at an unassailable 1362. My system isn’t calling it because it’s not doing data-matching, but I won’t continue following the seat on this post.

Melbourne. My system is calling this for Labor by a rather comfortable margin, on the basis of what now looks like a well-founded projection of preferences. I won’t continue following this one.

Menzies. My system is calling this for Labor. Postals broke 4258-3519 to Liberal today, cutting the margin from 1655 to 1145, but I only expect around 1200 to come, and absents should favour Labor.

Wills. My system is calling this for Labor, and I see no reason to doubt it. Nothing more from me on this one.

Longman. This continues to drift slowly away from Labor, today’s postals breaking 518-461 to push the LNP lead out to 471.

Fremantle. The Labor-versus-independent two-candidate count has caught up with the primary vote here, leaving Josh Wilson 1582 ahead of Kate Hulett, who has twice done well but not quite well enough. Another 4000 postals should widen the gap beyond the point where Hulett can hope to pull any rabbits out of the hat on absents or declaration pre-polls.

Tuesday

The AEC has published (so far) incomplete three-candidate preferred candidates for ten seats, which should clarify matters in Richmond, Flinders, Monash, Ryan and Forrest. However, we are only told how many booths have been counted, and not which ones they are. Without the latter information — which I’ve asked the AEC to provide — there will need to be a lot more counted than is presently the case for the results to be properly instructive. Nonetheless, the following points are of note:

Forrest. Here I believe I have been able to ascertain that the eight booths counted are Bunbury, Busselton PPVC, Carbanup River, Margaret River, Busselton West, Brunswick, Burdekup and Boyanup. From this I have calculated preferences flows 31.6% to Labor, 25.7% to Liberal and 42.6% to independent Sue Chapman. On that basis, I have Chapman dropping out after the three-candidate count with 30.3% to Labor’s 31.1%. If she can close that gap, she seems assured of defeating Liberal candidate Ben Small on Labor preferences. Failing that, I project a Liberal win of 51.7-48.3.

Richmond. The current count has Greens candidate Mandy Nolan on 33.6%, the Nationals on 33.5% and Labor dropping out with 32.9%, but I can only assume the twelve booths that produced this result lean strongly towards the Greens. The preference estimates in my system have her lagging at 35.0% to 32.5%. Whichever of the two makes the final count will defeat the Nationals – if both do, Nationals preferences will presumably decide it for Labor.

Flinders. The nine booths that are counted here have Liberal member Zoe McKenzie very close to 50%, which would leave her unassailable. Again though, these may be favourable booths for the Liberals. If that is so, independent Ben Smith stands at least some chance if he makes the final count ahead of Labor – and the current numbers suggest it will be close on that score.

Monash. I don’t believe there is much doubt independent Deb Leonard will make the final count ahead of Labor, but it’s close on the current numbers in the three-candidate count. Even if she gets there, there is only a slim chance she will overhaul Liberal candidate Mary Aldred.

Ryan. Once again, it’s hard to say without knowing what booths are involved, but the results so far – off a larger-than-usual 21 booths – cast some doubt over my assumption that the Greens will make the final count, allowing for some chance that Labor will win the seat ahead of the LNP at the final count instead.

Other developments from today:

Melbourne. Adam Bandt looks headed for an unexpected defeat as the first quarter of a fresh Greens-versus-Labor two-candidate count finds Liberal preferences heavily favouring Labor. I’m projecting Bandt’s primary vote to drop from 40.6% to 39.0%, reflecting the Greens’ weakness on postals, with Labor’s at 31.7%. With about three-quarters of preferences so far going to Labor, that suggests a margin upwards of 53-47. The narrower current margin indicated by my forecast is based on preference estimates that will shortly be superseded.

Bradfield. Nicolette Boele suffered a blow today when the results from St Ives PPVC were amended from 2043-1378 in favour of Liberal to 3297-2192, a 440 boost for Gisele Kapterian that almost exactly equals what I expected would be Boele’s winning margin. A batch of postals also broke 539-414 in favour of Kapterian, who now leads by 178 after trailing by 416 yesterday. Other vote types will likely favour Boele slightly, but Boele will need to do better than today’s batch on around 1400 outstanding postals to recover the lead.

Goldstein. The second batch of preferences for Zoe Daniel was slightly better than the first, but they still went 2406-1509 against her and pushed Tim Wilson 684 votes ahead, and there are about 8000 more to come.

Menzies. The Liberals are reportedly hyping what looks like an entirely run-of-the-mill error correction in the Doncaster East pre-poll booth, which has caused Labor’s count there to increase by 216 and reduced their own by 55.

Longman. The LNP lead increased from 309 to 439 after a batch of postals broke 1030-907 in their favour.

Bean. My system is calling this for independent Jessie Price, but I’d treat that with caution until the fresh Labor-versus-independent count is at a more advanced stage – the system assumes the two-candidate count is only slightly behind the primary, which ceases to apply when they scrap the former and start again. At the moment, the 74.0% preference flow to Price is projected to overcome Labor’s projected 40.8% to 26.8% lead on the primary vote.

Bullwinkel. There being nothing in it on the two-candidate count, I’m a bit dubious about my system’s 81% win probability for Labor. Today’s postals broke 1836-1758 to Liberal, but rechecking favoured Labor slightly, increasing their lead from all of 28 to 50.

Fremantle. A fair bit of progress on the fresh two-candidate count between Labor and independent Kate Hulett suggests preferences are breaking about 70-30 in favour of the latter, which isn’t quite enough to close a primary vote gap I’m projecting at 38.8% to 23.4%.

Monday

Batches of postals were added today in Richmond, Bendigo and Melbourne, but no progress made on the fresh two-candidate counts, which is what is really needed to clarify matters. There was at most rechecking done today in Goldstein, Monash, Wills, Ryan, Forrest and Fremantle. Calwell and Flinders are likely to remain unknowable until the formal distribution of preferences. Two seats I didn’t cover yesterday but should have:

Kooyong. I overlooked Kooyong in yesterday’s summary, probably because the system was calling it for Monique Ryan because its lack of data-matching in the case of this seat meant it wasn’t factoring in the conservatism of postals. In fact, Ryan is struggling: a first batch of postals broke 4934-2959 to Liberal and a second batch has gone 2424-1525, which has reduced her lead to 992. If about 7500 outstanding continue in that fashion, Amelia Hamer will pull ahead by 700 votes, not accounting for the impact of other vote types. The good news for Ryan is that at roughly this point in the count in 2022 she had received only 43.2% of postals, but got 49.8% of those that came in subsequently (and in Higgins, about a quarter of which has been transferred to Kooyong, the pattern with respect to Labor against Liberal was even more pronounced). A similar pattern this time would leave Ryan nearly 200 votes ahead, and other vote types will favour her very slightly if they behave as they did last time. Still, the verdict here is too-close-to-call.

Bean. This is in the category of seats where we need more progress on a fresh two-candidate count to know if an independent, Jessie Price, is getting a strong enough flow of preferences to overcome a Labor primary vote lead I project at 40.9% to 26.7%. Here as elsewhere, the fresh count only encompasses votes that have been counted since the decision to switch to a new count was made — presumably we can expect them to get stuck into the votes counted on the night over the coming days. For the time being, my system is relying on preference estimates. A field of only four candidates keeps this nice and simple: my estimates have the Liberals breaking 80-20 and the Greens 50-50. The evidence so far, which basically consists of 5492 postals and the 2211 votes from the Parkes pre-poll centre (if anyone from the AEC is reading this, the primary votes for Special Hospital Team 1 have been wrongly entered in the TCP), suggests this is about right: 73.2% of Liberal and Greens preferences have gone to the independent, where my estimate has it at 71.5%. The difference is crucial though: the former number gets the independent to 50.4%. When a few more booths are in on the TCP count, my projection will switch from the estimates to a preference flow based on the booth results.

Progress worth noting:

Bradfield. A batch of postals today broke 674-583 to Liberal, reducing Nicolette Boele’s margin to 416. I estimate another 2300 postals to come, on which the Liberals should gain about 320 if today’s batch is any guide. Here as in Kooyong though, experience from 2022 suggests later batches should continue to weaken for the Liberals (who got 59.0% on Saturday’s batch and 56.9% on today’s). The other categories of outstanding vote leaned slightly against the Liberals last time, so I slightly favour Boele to keep her nose in front.

Menzies. A second batch of postals broke 2212-1696 to Liberal, reducing Labor’s lead to 1384. There should be about 9000 still to come, which would cut the lead by about 1200 if they broke like today’s batch. But they will more likely be less favourable for the Liberals than that, and other vote types should slightly boost Labor.

Longman. The LNP hit a 309-vote lead here as postals broke 4232-3605, which was slightly more favourable for them than the first batch. Labor’s hopes rest on the tendency of last-arriving postals to be more favourable to them resulting in an even break, and about 400 votes they can hope to gain on other vote types.

Bullwinkel. Labor’s lead reduced from 85 to 28 as a second batch of postals broke 1001-944. So it’s close to begin with, postals are breaking about evenly, and the seat’s partly rural orientation means absents may not favour Labor like they generally do elsewhere.

I’ll hopefully get around to looking at the Senate tomorrow.

Sunday

This thread will be progressively updated with commentary on counting in in-doubt seats as it unfolds over the days to come. The following summary includes some that may be put beyond doubt as the Australian Electoral Commission conducts revised two-candidate throws, as it is having to do in unprecedented numbers of seats as the electoral environment grows more complex.

New South Wales:

Bradfield. My results display here is essentially going off raw totals here, so the general tendency of late counting to favour the Liberals needs to be factored in to Nicolette Boele’s current lead of 905 votes. A booth that has as yet only reported its primary vote should reduce that to about 820. I would guess that Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian will gain about half that on outstanding postals, leaving the matter to be determined by about 2500 absents and as many out-of-division pre-polls. Boele did relatively better on absents than ordinary votes in 2022, but that’s roughly cancelled out by the extent to which the opposite was true in North Sydney, about a quarter of which has been transferred to Bradfield. Out-of-division pre-polls were slightly more favourable to the Liberals, but only by enough to make 100 or 200 votes difference. Verdict: who knows.

Richmond. In 2022, Greens candidate Mandy Nolan was excluded before the final count with 30.9% to Labor member Justine Elliot’s 33.5%, and would have won if she had closed the gap. Both are up 1.7% this time, so you would imagine Nolan’s chances of closing the gap aren’t great. However, the lower order candidates last time were mostly right-wing, whereas this time Legalise Cannabis are in the mix with 3.8%. That should be good for about 0.7%, which is clearly not enough. So my system is probably right to put Nolan’s chances of closing the gap at about 1.2%, and that may be the last you hear from the seat on this post. Verdict: near-certain Labor hold.

Victoria:

Bendigo. A fascinating contest where the Nationals, who did not field a candidate in 2022, have pulled off a remarkable feat in taking the challenge right up to Labor in a seat where they had no doubt come to feel comfortable. In doing so they have tripled the Liberal vote and rendered redundant the AEC’s initial Labor-versus-Liberal two-candidate count. A fresh Labor-versus-Nationals count is only about a third of the way through — the Nationals are well ahead, but the count so far is almost entirely early votes and postals, on which they did particularly well. My system is currently projecting a Labor lead of 33.5% to 30.7% on the primary vote, which is firmly based and similar to the raw result, and a 53.8-46.2 split of the preferences (which include roughly similar numbers of Liberals and Greens) in favour of the Nationals, which is shakier. That produces a result that is lineball to a decimal place. Presumably we will get further clarity as the two-candidate count comes up to speed later today. Verdict: too close to call.

Calwell. The picture presented here is increasingly familiar from state seats in the outer reaches of Melbourne, with a vote splintering among an expansive field of candidates amid a plunging Labor vote. Labor candidate Basem Abdo’s 30.7% is nonetheless double the second-placed Liberal candidate, but it’s also low enough that I can’t entirely rule out an independent snowballing to victory off an unprecedentedly low primary vote. On that score, former Labor-aligned Hume mayor Carly Moore is on 12.1% and refugee activist is on Joseph Youhana. One of these two will very likely overtake the Liberal and absorb most of their preferences. Somewhere out of the nearly 60% of the vote cast for the candidates who aren’t in the final count, Abdo will need to find 20%. Verdict: who knows.

Flinders. Liberal member Zoe McKenzie is on 41.2% and both Labor and teal independent Ben Smith are on 20%, so presumably Smith will make it to the final count on the preferences of lower order candidates. Certainly the AEC thinks so, because it’s pulled its Liberal-versus-Labor two-candidate count and will presumably set to work shortly on one between McKenzie and Smith. For the time being, my preference estimates get McKenzie home by about 52-48. They could be wrong though. Verdict: likely Liberal retain.

Goldstein. As in several other independent seats, my system isn’t going off booth-matching here because of the impossibility of doing so for areas newly added in the redistribution, which means it doesn’t account for the tendency of late counting to favour the Liberals. That tendency struck with a vengeance yesterday as the first batch of postals broke fully 6387-3444 in favour of Tim Wilson, leaving Zoe Daniel with only 95 votes to hold out against the likely coming tide. There should be about 7000 further postals to come, and while they will assuredly be more even than the first batch, it’s hard not to see them favouring Wilson heavily enough to overwhelm the likely modest advantage to Daniel on absents. Verdict: likely Liberal gain.

Melbourne. While the Greens were known to face an uphill battle in their Brisbane seats, nowhere was defeat for Adam Bandt seriously countenanced anywhere I’m aware of before the election, but the prospect is raised by a shift from the Greens to Labor of about 6% on the primary vote. I don’t normally fault the AEC for its two-candidate count choices, but it beats me why it originally chose to throw to the Liberals: even if they had been right about them making the final count, it stood no chance of offering any insights on the result that weren’t already obvious. That count has duly been pulled and a fresh Greens-versus-Labor throw is in its very early stages, so my projection is based on a preference estimate that puts Labor’s nose in front, which is almost entirely down to a 70-30 split of Liberal preferences in favour of Labor. Again, the progress of the two-candidate count, which will presumably unfold today, will add clarity to a presently obscure picture. Verdict: too close to call.

Menzies. I believe Liberal member Keith Wolahan was practically being written off here at the end of Saturday night, but it looks like the first batch of postals have given him a sniff by breaking 4509-3259 his way. But he remains 1900 votes behind, which will be very hard to rein in from here. Postals, of which there should be around 12,000, will need to continue favouring him around 58-42, which doesn’t seem likely. Also still out there are around 3000 out-of-division pre-polls and 1500 yet-to-be counted ordinary pre-polls, which will most likely break about evenly, and about 2500 absents, which should boost Labor by a couple of hundred votes. Verdict: likely Labor gain.

Monash. My system is still giving third-placed independent Deb Leonard a vague chance, but I suspect the preference estimates that push her comfortably ahead of Labor, whom she trails 20.4% to 17.5% on the primary vote, are being generous to her. A conventional two-candidate count makes it clear enough that Labor won’t win, but with the Liberal vote at only 32.2%, Leonard may have a better (or worse) chance at the final count than my preference estimates for her suggest if only she can get that far. The odds are stacked against her though. Verdict: likely Liberal retain.

Wills. A nice clean count, well advanced and between correctly chosen candidates, has Labor member Peter Khalil with a 2813 lead over Greens challenger Samantha Ratnam. Absents and out-of-division pre-polls should heavily favour the Greens, cutting upwards of 1500 into the Labor vote, but an ongoing tide of postals to Labor is likely to keep it out of their reach. Verdict: likely Labor retain.

Queensland:

Longman. Labor leads by 318 votes, but there are a lot of postals yet to come — around 14,000 of them. Those counted so far have only been slightly favourable to the LNP, but despite what my projection says (and it causes me to think I may be missing something here), I would say their volume and general tendency is such that I think the LNP clearly have to be favoured. Verdict: likely LNP retain.

Ryan. This is down to whether the Greens or Labor make the final count against the LNP, on which the two-candidate count between the Greens and the LNP offers no insight, notwithstanding that it may well have chosen the right candidates. In similar circumstances in 2022, the AEC helpfully conducted an indicative three-candidate preferred count in the week after the election, the alternative to which is to leave us waiting until the formal distribution of preferences, which can’t be conducted until all the votes are in. The primary vote currently has the Greens on 29.1% and Labor on 28.2%, which I am projecting to narrow to 28.6% to 28.2%. The question then becomes whether preferences out of 7.8% scattered among minor candidates, almost all of them right-wing, can close the gap for the Greens. Not quite, is the verdict of my preference estimates. But it can’t be ruled out entirely. Verdict: leaning Labor gain.

Western Australia:

Bullwinkel. Labor’s Trish Cook holds a 74-vote lead over Liberal candidate Matt Moran in this new Western Australian seat, and those seem assured of being the last two candidates, former state Nationals leader Mia Davies trailing Moran by 24.5% to 16.4% on the primary vote. The first batch of postals have broken unusually evenly, so the usual conservative lean of late counting evidently cannot be relied upon. The AEC’s historic data suggests both absents, of which there should be over 5000, and to a lesser extent out-of-division pre-polls, of which there should be around 7000, should favour Labor, presumably because they are concentrated in the suburban rather than the country end of the seat. Verdict: leaning Labor.

Forrest. Labor has little chance here, the issue here being whether teal independent Sue Chapman, who trails Labor 18.7% to 22.7% on the primary vote, can pull ahead on preference and then overhaul Liberal candidate Ben Small, on 31.7%. My preference estimates suggest she is more likely than not to clear the first hurdle, but only stands a 50-50 chance of clearing the second if she gets there. Postals haven’t been especially favourable to the Liberals, so she is at least in with a chance. Verdict: leaning Liberal.

Fremantle. With the Liberals running a fairly distant third, the AEC has scrapped its Labor-versus-Liberal two-candidate and has just started on a throw between Labor member Josh Wilson and teal independent Kate Hulett, who appear evenly balanced. At the time of writing on the close of business on Sunday, it has Hulett ahead, but it does so entirely on the basis of how preference split at the Fremantle town centre pre-poll booth (one of its votes being my own), which were possibly more teal-friendly than the norm. The progress of this count will more likely than not clarify matters: only if it doesn’t will it become worthwhile analysing distinctions between ordinary votes and postals and such.