South Australian election live

Live coverage of the count for the South Australian state election.

Click here for full display of South Australian election results.

I’m otherwise engaged this evening, so won’t be offering anything in the way of live commentary, but hopefully the Poll Bludger live results system will tell you everything you need to know. As well as the main landing platform linked to above there is also a map display that will colour in as results are reported to reflect who the system deems to be ahead or to have won, respectively indicated with a lighter or darker shade.

Each individual seat page comes with projections (which start from assumptions about who the three leading candidates will be, which in some cases I may have to change on the fly if I find time) and results at swings at booth level, displayed in both tabular and mapped form (for the latter, click the “active” button at the bottom of the page). As always, I’m crossing my fingers hoping this will all work okay. I have made life harder for myself by implementing a new method for determining win probabilities, which would ideally have been rolled out at a less complicated election. Hopefully its errors will be on the side of caution – a may implement some rather crude fudges on the fly to make it so if that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening.

This will be a landmark election night so far as the Electoral Commission of South Australia’s reporting of the results is concerned, as early voting centres will be counted on the night for the first time (though experience suggest some of them will handle too many votes for them to finish the job before the close of business). What were formerly reported in one line as “declaration votes” will now be reported at an appropriate level of complexity – early voting centres no longer count as declaration votes, and will be reported on a location by location basis, and the rest will for the first time be reported separately as postals, absents and the best. This complicated matters for those of us who need to produce datasets of previous election results to match against those that will be reported tonight for swing calculation purposes, but is undoubtedly a welcome development in the long run.

An added layer of challenge lies in the fact that the ECSA offers no indication as to which candidates it has selected for the notional two-candidate preferred counts, which are usually provided to the media on a confidential basis. A couple of seat pages are in fact not working as they should be because one of my tables says one thing about who the candidates will be another one says another, but I believe I’ve geared things so it will correct itself when the appropriate candidates can be identified. If however individual seat results pages continue to misfire, the likeliest explanation (though my no means the only one possible) will have something to do with this issue. In an ideal world I would be free to patch things together, but as it stands I will be otherwise engaged, so it’s a question of fingers crossed.

Naturally all of this involved a vast amount of unpaid work, so if you believe that situation should be rectified, your donations are gratefully received through the “become a supporter” buttons at the top of the site and the bottom of each post.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

629 thoughts on “South Australian election live”

  2. Pauline chucking a tanty already. Banning the ABC from ON’s election night function because they reported on her dodgy candidate with a sexual offence arrest warrant in the UK. Perhaps Pauline only likes confirmed rapists like Trump.

  4. I reckon ON will underperform the polling by about 3-4%, and will underperform seat expectations even below this lower primary vote.

    No ground game, poor flow of preferences. Too much vote concentration.

  6. As Barrie Cassidy said, Peter Malinauskas came up with the best line of the campaign:

    “Tomorrow I will be at home here in South Australia. Pauline Hanson will be back at home in Queensland.”

  7. Going to be an interesting night. My forecast would be: Labor 32–35 seats, Liberals 6–10, independents 2–4, One Nation 0–2 lower-house seats, Greens unlikely in the lower house but competitive in some areas; One Nation likely multiple Legislative Council seats.

    That is still only a forecast, not a certainty. The biggest risk to it is that One Nation’s polling proves either more real than expected in specific regional seats, or less real once actual candidate strength and preference flows bite.

  9. Best line from Oz reporter….

    “Lib leader tried to save the furniture but found Pauline Hanson on the couch”.

    Gold.

    Any one taking a One nation flyer today and a lab/lib one is voting for ON.Did not want to be seen as allegedly racist!

  10. The critical point for all the sweating etc about ONP is whether this shows it is a real force demonstrating it knows how to actually WIN seats or it’s just a vote storage device for voters and a cash grab for Hanson et al (as ONP always has been a scam which sometimes ends up with people elected).

    We’ll see.

  11. I am handing out ALP How To Vote cards in Rhiannon Pearce’s electorate.
    There is a different vibe than previous years. When I did this previously, all volunteers fir all parties were friendly and chatting. We would even hand out the other party’s cards if their person needed to go to the toilet.

    This rime the Libs and One Nation kept to their own little group. One Nation volunteers were heard loudly discussing the things they hate immigration, abortion etc. My attempt at friendly talk didn’t get anywhere.

    The Greens and the Independent’s volunteers were very friendly and I chatted at length with them.

    The normal ‘We are in it for democracy’ vibe was lacking in the rightwimg parties, on the day

  13. Let’s go folks, this is going to be fascinating. Will the South Australian election reshape Australian politics more broadly? Or does One Nation flop?

    Probably something in between

  16. @Griff at 6:19pm

    Not on the front line, but I expect that tonight they’ll focus on sorting out the Primary votes with notional Labor vs. Liberal counts, then go about sorting out 2cp votes and preferences next week.

  19. Cory Bernardi looks weird and uncomfortable in a baseball cap.

    If he’s going to be in One Nation, he has to wear a baseball cap and drive a gigantic, gas-guzzling ute

  20. Kirsdarke says:
    Saturday, March 21, 2026 at 6:22 pm
    @Griff at 6:19pm

    Not on the front line, but I expect that tonight they’ll focus on sorting out the Primary votes with notional Labor vs. Liberal counts, then go about sorting out 2cp votes and preferences next week.

    _________

    It would be interesting to know if the ECSA has decided otherwise across seats.

  25. I’ll go with:

    LABOR 40
    LIBS 2
    PHON 4
    INDIE 1
    GREEN 0

    Conservative Libs will park their vote with PHON, with the goal of wiping out the remnant ‘moderate libs’, tonight.

    And good riddance. To the ‘mod libs’ out there, F.O. and go and join your labor & green mates. Libs are supposed to be centre right, remember. You’ll learn the hard way tonight. Ha ha.

    Antic will be silent tonight, because he wants ‘them’ gone too.

    Antic to commence the S.A. Lib rebuild, from Monday.

  27. First dummy spit of the night has come from Pauline Hanson who has banned the ABC from its party hq due to their breaking the story about Aoi Baxter.

  28. Aaaaand they’re off and racist. Erm, racing. (Sorry, I’ve got One Nation on the brain.)

    My predictions (much longer version on the last thread): ALP 37 Lib 3 ON 1 Ind 7, with 6-5 to the left in the upper house (last two seats to be preference soup).

    Libs: Bragg, Schubert, MacKillop.

    One Nation: Chaffey.

    Independents: the four won in 2022, plus Flinders, Hammond and Finniss.

    Let’s see.

  29. If I try really hard I could imagine that moderate liberals might occupy the centre right.

    To me, I find many labour positions to be centre right and the more moderate edges of the liberal party aren’t showing a lot of signs of lining up there so I guess I have to agree with Alabama that the moderate liberals deserve to go because they’ve abandoned the ground in the centre right.

    Can anyone tell me which seats might be (formerly?) occupied by these liberal unicorns?

  30. How can ON chuck out the ABC because they found one of their candidates was wanted for a sex crime?
    And the idea that McBride could get back in while on home detention for DV?
    WTF is happening to our country.

  31. Just finished a long day of handing out for Labor in the Eastern suburbs and my feeling is that the Liberals Party is going to do better here than many imagine, and while One Nation will get a swing, it won’t be quite as big in the East; they are died in the wool Liberal out here. My prediction is that the Liberals retain Bragg, and they have a real chance in Morphett and Hartley too. Not the wipeout in Adelaide we were hoping for. I don’t know enough about what’s happening in regional SA to comment about what happens out there, but wouldn’t be surprised if One Nation struggles to translate votes into seats.

    As for the upper house. ALP 4, One Nation 2, Liberal 2, Greens 1 can be locked in. I favour ALP for one of the last two seats, but One Nation 3, Green 2 and a surprise Other all also in the mix – Other could be Animal Justice, Marijuana or Family First. (I don’t rate SA Best’s chances at all: may not even crack 1%)

  33. Before the night gets too long, may I say a huge thanks to anyone on this blog who helped fight the good fight at polling booths to hand out HTV cards for Labor and the Greens.

  36. Kirsdarkesays:
    Saturday, March 21, 2026 at 6:50 pm
    @Diogenes at 6:49pm

    WTF is happening to our country.

    We took too long to ban leaded petrol.
    _____________________
    Now that’s the best comment you’ve ever given.

  38. Diogenes: I’ve tipped the Libs in MacKillop, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m wrong. Fraser Ellis and Troy Bell managed to win last time in similar circumstances, as did Gareth Ward in NSW.

    I guess that raises the possibility of David Speirs in Black, too.

  39. Non-classic TCP counts.LIB v ONP in Chaffey and Schubert; ALP v ONP in Giles and Wright; LIB v IND in Finniss, Flinders, MacKillop, Mount Gambier, Narungga, Stuart; ALP v IND in Port Adelaide, Kavel.

  40. First dummy spit of the night has come from Pauline Hanson who has banned the ABC from its party hq due to their breaking the story about Aoi Baxter.

    Christ, they are such pathetic snowflakes.

    In what universe would a media outlet not report on a candidate who has a warrent out for their arrest!?

    I’m sure Pauline would be completely silent about it if Labor had preselected a wanted criminal who had recently moved here from overseas.

  41. BTRP

    Before the night gets too long, may I say a huge thanks to anyone on this blog who helped fight the good fight at polling booths to hand out HTV cards for Labor and the Greens.

    Plus 1 from me!

  44. C@tmomma @ #27 Saturday, March 21st, 2026 – 6:41 pm

    First dummy spit of the night has come from Pauline Hanson who has banned the ABC from its party hq due to their breaking the story about Aoi Martin.

    Totally Trumpian, so at least Pauline is on brand. 😆

    I agree with others that they’re pathetic whiners who can’t take the heat.

  45. Boerwar says:
    Saturday, March 21, 2026 at 6:50 pm
    Labor 47.

    Hear, hear!!

    I’m looking forward to the day when the Liberals decide to dissolve themselves. They are political derelicts.

  46. Ghost Of Whitlam says:
    Saturday, March 21, 2026 at 5:58 pm

    Pauline chucking a tanty already. Banning the ABC because they reported on her dodgy candidate with a sexual offence arrest warrant in the UK. Perhaps Pauline only likes confirmed rapists like Trump.
    ________________________________

    Did she call them out as fake news? If the ON results are a fizzle will the SA election commission get called out for voter fraud due to the computer issues today, maybe throw in some illegal voters to the bingo card as well as a ‘stolen’ election. Go on Pauline, give it both barrels with all the MAGA greatest hits, will show those undecideds just what an unoriginal Trump clone you are, guaranteed ‘winning’

  47. William Bowe says:
    Saturday, March 21, 2026 at 6:55 pm
    Non-classic TCP counts.LIB v ONP in Chaffey and Schubert; ALP v ONP in Giles and Wright; LIB v IND in Finniss, Flinders, MacKillop, Mount Gambier, Narungga, Stuart; ALP v IND in Port Adelaide, Kavel.

    ________

    Much appreciated!

  49. Asha says:
    Saturday, March 21, 2026 at 6:55 pm

    First dummy spit of the night has come from Pauline Hanson who has banned the ABC from its party hq due to their breaking the story about Aoi Baxter.

    Christ, they are such pathetic snowflakes.

    In what universe would a media outlet not report on a candidate who has a warrent out for their arrest!?

    I’m sure Pauline would be completely silent about it if Labor had preselected a wanted criminal who had recently moved here from overseas.
    _______________________________

    Well give the candidate a bit of credit, he did change his name after he fled the country and the warrant is just a ‘fail to appear’ at court in the UK.

  50. Always interesting the Liberals who keep going on about a “protest vote against both parties”. Uh.. no.

    Where is this non-existent protest vote against Labor in the polling? They won 40% primary last election. Polls are showing 40% now. The election result might be 45%. But even if it’s a bit lower, a few percent of Labor switching one way or the other isn’t a “protest”, it’s normal.

    An actual protest vote is against the incompetent Liberal and National Party coalition. They went from 35.5% at election down to polling into the low 10’s. That is a protest vote.

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