Victorian election live

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End of evening update (WB)

My results system will continue ticking over through late counting, but until I iron out a few bugs that seem to be having the effect of overrating Greens and independents’ chances in tight races, I recommend favouring the ABC’s projections over mine to the extent of inconsistencies. So while the Greens have easily won Richmond, it seems unlikely they will add further to their existing three seats; and it is unclear that any independents will win, with incumbents losing to the Nationals in Mildura and Shepparton, teals being only possibilities in Hawthorn and Mornington, and a number of hyped independent challengers in Labor seats having made only the faintest of impressions.

I haven’t had time to look at the Legislative Council at all, but the preliminary projections of the ABC suggest the Greens are returning as a force in the chamber, up from one seat to four, with Labor on 15 and having myriad possibilities of assembling the required 21 votes out of 40 from another sprawling cross-bench.

Live Commentary

11:32pm There’s a lot of counting to go in the upper house, but the current results look promising for a progressive upper house.  It’s 15 Labor out of 40, 15 Coalition, four Greens, two Legalise Cannabis, one Animal Justice, one Fiona Patten, one Shooter and one One Nation.  If this holds up (I’m not confident given group voting tickets), then the left side will have 23 of the 40 upper house seats and the right 17.  And with that, it’s time for bed for me.  William Bowe will resume coverage of the Victorian election.

11:16pm I’ve done a short article for The Conversation on the results so far.  The Coalition would have been thrashed given the 54.3-45.7 current statewide numbers, but furthermore they’ve lost seats in net terms to Labor, rather than gaining.  The swing to the Coalition was inefficiently distributed, being wasted on safe Labor seats, while some swings to Labor were on Coalition marginal seats.

9:53pm The ABC has Labor losing Morwell and Nepean to the Coalition, but gaining Bayswater, Glen Waverley, Hastings and Polwarth.  If that holds, Labor would be up two in Labor vs Coalition seats.

9:40pm Labor has clearly won a majority, but I’m not sure yet how large the Greens surge will be.  Early votes are now being reported in some seats, and look better for Labor in swing terms than Election Day votes.

9:13pm Greens leading in seven seats now, but in Albert Park they’ve fallen behind the Libs on primary vote, and this will be a Labor vs Lib contest with Labor winning.  Greens gains have been called in Northcote, Richmond and Footscray, while Preston is close between Labor and the Greens with Labor just ahead.

8:31pm There are two Lib-held seats where Labor is currently leading: Bayswater and Glen Waverley.

8:28pm While the Greens are currently winning Albert Park, the final primary vote projections show the Libs getting into second, in which case it’ll be Labor vs Lib with Labor winning.

8:22pm With 33% counted in Hawthorn, teal ind Lowe is leading the Libs by 52.3-47.7 on projected 2CP.  She has climbed into second ahead of Labor and projections suggest she’ll stay second.

7:58pm Greens now winning EIGHT lower house seats.  But with 9.3% counted statewide, swing against Labor down to 3.1% two party, and they’re winning this count by 54.5-45.5 — exactly what Newspoll said.

7:52pm Daniel Andrews will easily win Mulgrave.  The Libs have made their first gain from Labor in Nepean, with a 6.3% swing.

7:45pm Some bug in the PB results now, but before they went offline the Greens were winning SEVEN lower house seats, which would be a great result for them and up from their current three.

7:35pm With 4.1% statewide counted, two party swing against Labor drops to 3.8%, and they’re now up 53.8-46.2 statewide.  They’re leading or have won 47 lower house seats, enough for a majority.  The Coalition is leading in 24 seats and the Greens in five.

7:29pm Now down to a 9.6% swing to the Libs in Yan Yean, with Labor winning by 57.6-42.4 with 6.3% in.

7:28pm With 5.5% counted in Yan Yean, there’s a massive 14.5% swing to the Libs, with Labor still winning by 52.7-47.3.

7:24pm With 2.7% counted, overall swing against Labor reduces to 5.2%, and they lead by 52.3-47.7.

7:16pm Overall swing against Labor increases to 7.3% two party with 2.0% counted.  Only ahead by 50.2-49.8 now, which would see them lose their lower house majority.

7:08pm Teal Independent Melissa Lowe currently winning Hawthorn 54-46 over Libs.  Problem is she’s currently third behind the Libs and Labor.

7:06pm Back to a projected lead of 51.9-48.1 to the Greens in Footscray with 1.8% in.

7:04pm First booth in Footscray is a strong swing to the Greens, who would gain this seat from Labor if that holds up.

6:59pm PB results now projecting a 5.0% overall two party swing against Labor, though that would still be a 52.6-47.4 win for Labor; this might not be enough for a majority.

6:44pm With 1.5% counted in Euroa, the PB projected swing so far is 1.7% to Labor.  It’s a safe Nat seat, but not a good early sign for the Coalition

Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.

William Bowe is working for Channel Nine, and has asked me to provide live commentary on the Victorian election. Once a result for the lower house is clear, I will need to write an article for The Conversation. The rest of this intro post is from my article for The Conversation on the large final Newspoll lead for Labor.

There are 88 single-member lower house seats with members elected by preferential voting, and 40 upper house seats in eight five-member electorates. The election in the lower house seat of Narracan has been postponed owing to a candidate’s death.

As at Friday, ABC election analyst Antony Green said 43.4% of all Victorian enrolled voters had voted early in-person, and a further 13.3% had applied for a postal vote. With a likely final turnout of around 90%, that means over 63% have already voted. Early voting has increased since 2018.

The early voting will slow election night counts as early vote centres will likely take until late at night to report their counts. The Poll Bludger said Friday that some postal votes will also be counted on election night. Counting could also be slow owing to the large numbers of candidates.

In the upper house, with eight five-member electorates, a quota is one-sixth of the vote, or 16.7%. It’s probably not safe to call for anyone not elected on quota on election night as small changes in vote share can give a different result under group voting tickets (GVT).

The ABC will have projections of upper house results using its calculator. But this calculator assumes that all votes are above the line ticket votes. If a party that needs help from other parties’ GVTs is beating a bigger party by a narrow margin, that lead would likely disappear once below the line votes are factored in.

Introductory note by William Bowe.

The VEC is conducting non-standard two-party preferred counts in the following seats: Labor versus Greens in Albert Park, Bruswick, Footscray, Melbourne, Northcote, Pascoe Vale, Preston and Richmond; Liberal versus independent in Benambra, Brighton, Hawthorn, Kew, Mornington and Shepparton; Labor versus independent in Melton, Point Cook and Werribee; independent versus Nationals in Mildura; Greens versus Liberal in Prahran.

At first, the projections in the live results will assume the VEC has picked the two candidates correctly. As it becomes apparent in which seats it has not done so, which these days is just about inevitable in at least some cases, I will have to make a manual adjustment so that preference estimates are used to calculate a two-candidate preferred result (such estimates are also used until a respectable amount of the two-candidate preferred votes are reported). To illustrate this point: until I make such an adjustment, the system will give Labor no chance of retaining Hawthorn, since the count there is between the Liberal and an independent.

The results maps that can be accessed by clicking the button at the bottom of each electorate page indicate the locations of polling booths with white dots when no results are in; colour-coded dots when primary vote results only are available; and, when the booth’s two-candidate result has been reported, colour-coded numbers showing the percentage result for the party that won the booth.