Category: Australian Capital Territory Politics

Conclusion: Saturday, October 24

What are apparently the final distributions have been posted, so we look to have a final result of Labor 10 (down two), Liberal nine (down two) and Greens six (up four), with 2-2-1 results everywhere except Kurrajong, where the Greens won a second seat to secure a 2-1-2 result. Johnathan Davis of the Greens won the last seat in Brindabella ahead of Labor’s Taimus Werner-Gibbins, resulting in 2-2-1 rather than 3-2, and Peter Cain won a second seat for the Liberals in Ginninderra ahead of a third for Labor by edging out incumbent Gordon Ramsay, resulting in 2-2-1 rather than 3-1-1.

When I last analysed the count in Brindabella a full week ago, Werner-Gibbins led Davis by seven at the key point in the count, which ended up being an 82 vote advantage to Davis. Unsuccessful Liberal Andrew Wall landed 110 votes clear of Werner-Gibbins at this point of the count; if he had fallen behind, his preferences would have decided the result between the other two. In Ginninderra, Labor’s hope of ekeing out a third seat by re-electing Gordon Ramsay disappeared over the week as Liberal candidate Peter Cain’s 271 vote deficit against Ramsay at the key count has turned into a 167 vote advantage.

End of Saturday night

Let’s start with the big picture. Labor’s overall vote appears to be entirely unchanged from 2016 at 38.4%; the Liberals are down from 36.7% to 33.4%; and the Greens are up from 10.3% to 13.5%. It is clear there will continue to be a Labor government relying on Greens support: with two seats still in doubt, the 23 confirmed seats have gone Labor 10, Liberal eight and Greens five, compared with Labor 12, Liberal 11 and Greens two in 2016. Their respective best case scenarios are 12, nine and six.

One of the seats in doubt is in Brindabella, where the Liberals have clearly lost a seat in the only district where they won three in 2016, the question being whether it goes to Labor or the Greens. The other is in Ginninderra, where the Greens have clearly gained a seat, the question being whether it comes at the expense of Labor, who won three seats in 2016, or the Liberals, who won two. One of the two districts that went 2-2-1 in 2016, Murrumbidgee, has done so again this time; in the other, Kurrajong, the Greens have gained a second seat and reduced the Liberals to one. The Greens have won a seat from Labor in Yerrabi, where Labor won three and the Liberals two in 2016.

Breaking it down by district:

Brindabella

With Labor and the Liberals assured of two, the question of the final seat comes down to a seven vote gap between Labor’s number three, Tamius Werner-Gibbings, and Greens candidate Johnathan Davis, who are respectively at 4961 and 4954 at the decisive distribution. The defeated third Liberal incumbent, Andrew Wall, is on 5050 at this point of the count, and the complexion of Liberal preference flows between Labor and the Greens will determine the result if he falls back by 50 votes so and gets excluded before Werner-Gibbings and Davis.

The absence of the Sex Party, who polled 7.9% in 2016, left room for substantial gains for both Labor (up 7.5% to 41.1%) and the Greens (up 5.8% to 10.9%), while the Liberals fell 3.8% to 38.1%. Labor’s two incumbents, Joy Burch and Mick Gentleman, had no trouble getting re-elected, and there was again little to separate them, with both gaining around 3% off similar vote shares from 2016. Taimus Werner-Gibbings polled 6.7% without getting elected in 2016, and is now contention to do so after gaining 1.7%.

The order of the three elected Liberals in 2016 was Andrew Wall, Mark Parton and Nicole Lawder, but it was Wall who went under as his fell from 12.0% to 8.1%, while Parton and Lawder made slight gains. The Greens vote more doubled, from 5.1% to 10.9%, with Davis going from 1.5% at his unsuccessful run in 2016 to 5.6% this time.

Ginninderra

Despite polling a solid 9.2%, the Belco Party did not end up being in contention. Whereas I speculated pre-election that they might give the Liberals a path to victory by poaching a seat from Labor they would not have been able to win themselves, their presence did not in fact do the Liberals any favours, and may actually cost them one of the two seats they went in with. At the point where lead Belco Party candidate Bill Stefaniak drops out of the count, more than half his vote exhausts, with 29.8% going to the Liberals, 12.2% to Labor and 4.6% to the Greens. That leaves two seats and three candidates, with Jo Clay of the Greens in the clear on 5791, and Labor’s Gordon Ramsay ahead for the last seat with 5282 votes to 5011 for Peter Cain of the Liberals. So Cain has a gap of 271, or around 0.6% of the total, to make up in late counting.

The Liberal vote in Ginninderra slumped 6.2% to 25.8%, although Labor were also down 0.8% to 40.6% as the Belco Party muscled into the field, and the Greens were up 3.2% to 12.9%. With three Labor incumbents seeking re-election, Yvette Berry and Tara Cheyne picked up strong swings to dominate the party’s vote, while Gordon Ramsay trod water and lagged behind, to mix a metaphor. The only Liberal incumbent, Elizabeth Kikkert, picked up 2.3% to emerge the clear winner for the only assured Liberal seat. The potential second winner, newcomer Peter Cain, polled 5.3%, and Jo Clay dominated among the Greens with 6.4%.

Kurrajong

The Greens’ success in gaining a second seat at the expense of one of the two Liberal incumbents comes down to Rebecca Vassarotti of the Greens having 5021 votes at the relevant exclusion to 4384 for Candice Burch of the Liberals, which I presume is too big a gap to make up on late counting.

The traffic in the party vote shares was between Liberal and the Greens, with the former down 4.8% to 26.2% and the latter up 5.2% to 24.0%, while Labor held steady on 38.4%. The two re-elected Labor incumbents had little change on their 2016 vote shares, with Andrew Barr on 22.3% and Rachel Stephen-Smith on 5.6%.

Elizabeth Lee emerged the only clear Liberal winner with 9.3%, little changed on 2016; Burch’s likely defeat arises mroe from the overall drop in the Liberal vote rather than her own vote share, which was up 1.6% to 7.5%. Of the Greens, Shane Rattenbury’s 13.2% was little changed on 2016, with Rebecca Vassarotti gaining 3.1% on her unsuccessful 2016 performance to score 6.5%, well ahead of the party’s other two candidates.

Murrumbidgee

Needing a win in an electorate where they had been favoured by the redistribution, the Liberals did no better than maintain the status quo with a particularly weak vote share of 34.6%, down 9.9% on their redistribution-adjusted total from 2016. Labor were up 3.8% to 36.8% and the Greens 1.4% to 12.1%, with most of the lost Liberal vote accounted for by independent Fiona Carrick’s 7.0%.

From the Labor ticket, Chris Steel sophomore surged by 5.0% to 14.1%, but the other newcomer from 2016, Bec Cody, looks set to lose to party colleague Marisa Paterson after dropping 1.7% to 7.0%, while Paterson was on 8.0%. Cody’s 370-vote deficit against Paterson on the primary vote grows to 717 with the distribution of preferences.

Of the Liberals, Jeremy Hanson got 14.3% after losing 8.1% from the vote share he managed as leader in 2016, while the other Liberal incumbent, Giulia Jones, dropped 0.7% to 6.5%, only slightly clear of Liberal newcomer Amardeep Singh on 6.2%. Her 113-vote lead over Singh on the primary vote expands to 528 as preferences are distributed. The new Greens member is Emma Davison, who dominated the party’s vote with 7.2%.

Yerrabi

The outlier of the five districts, with the Liberals surging 4.4% to 40.2% while Labor sagged by 9.2% to 34.7%, for which the DLP’s 4.8% provides only half an explanation. However, it doesn’t appear to have done the Liberals any good, as they remain stuck on two seats, with the Greens instead gaining a seat from Labor after their vote rose 3.2% to 10.3%.

Part of the shift from Labor to Liberal reflects the mid-term retirement of Labor’s strongest incumbent from 2016, Meegan Fitzharris – Labor’s three incumbents, Michael Pettersson, Suzanne Orr and Deepak-Raj Gupta, made only slight gains despite her 15.2% being up for grabs, polling between 7.2% and 9.7%. The other notable candidate factor behind the result was Liberal member Alistair Coe’s rise to the leadership, though his 1.7% gain to 15.9% was quite modest. Liberal newcomer Leanne Castley gained a seat at the expense of party colleague James Milligan, polling 8.6% to Milligan’s 7.0%, the latter being 0.6% down on his vote from 2016. Andrew Braddock dominated the two-candidate Greens ticket with 6.5%.

Live commentary

Continue reading “Australian Capital Territory election live”

With less than a week to go, I finally have an Australian Capital Territory election guide for your reading pleasure, consisting of an overview and reviews of the contests for the territory’s five five-member electoral districts. Labor has been in power since 2001 and is aiming for its sixth successive victory – a tall order in normal circumstances made quite a lot easier by the local Liberal Party’s determination to tack far to the right of the capital’s ideological median.

That at least is my limited reading of the situation, which is based on a bare minimum of opinion polling. The only credible poll I’m aware of was conducted by uComms for the Australia Institute back in early August, which had Labor on 37.6%, compared with 38.4% at the 2016 election; the Liberals at 38.2%, compared with 36.7%; and the Greens at 14.6%, compared with 10.3%. Clubs ACT published results from an online survey it conducted of 1300 respondents, which you can read about on page 26 of its September newsletter, but it presumably didn’t involve any of the techniques that can make such a poll credible. For what it’s worth, it had similar numbers to the Australia Institute for the major parties – 36.1% for Labor and 38.4% for Liberal – but only 9.6% for the Greens.

The numbers in the 25-member Legislative Assembly are Labor 12, Liberal 11 and Greens two, after the 2016 election gave Labor three seats and Liberal two in the northern suburban electorates of Yerrabi and Ginninderra, the reverse in the southern suburbs electorate of Brindabella, and two each for Labor and Liberal plus one for the Greens in each of the central Canberra electorates of Kurrajong and Murrumbidgee. Labor’s likeliest path to defeat would involve losing seats in any two out of Yerrabi, Ginninderra and Murrumbidgee. The Liberals could perhaps win a third seat in Murrumbidgee with a 2% swing, but Yerrabi and Ginninderra would require major breakthroughs. However, an opportunity could arise courtesy of Bill Stefaniak, a former Liberal MP who is running in Ginninderra under the banner of the Belco Party – albeit that he has not been in parliament since 2008 and memories of his good works will have faded.

Antony Green is tracking the progress of pre-poll voting on his blog, and the numbers are rather startling, with 28.8% of enrolled voters already having cast their vote, compared with 7.3% at the same point in 2016. All of the pre-poll voting centres allow for electronic voting, a contingency all but unique to the Australian Capital Territory, and Antony Green reports that nearly 90% of pre-poll voters are availing themselves of it. This could potentially take some of the drama out of election night, as results from electronic voting arrive in a flood within the first hour after polling booths close.

The Australian Capital Territory election count was resolved today, producing a final result of 12 seats for Labor, 11 for Liberal and two for the Greens, confirming Labor’s re-election with Greens support. In the two close races, Labor won the final seat in Ginninderra at the expense of the Greens, for a result of Labor three, Liberal two, and the Greens edged out the Liberals in Murrumbidgee, for a result of Labor two, Liberal two, Greens one. Thirteen of the 15 elected members are women, which is presumably some sort of first.

Brindabella. This was the one result that was entirely clear on election night, with three of the seats going to Liberals (Andrew Wall, Mark Parton and Nicole Lawder) and two to Labor (Mick Gentleman and Joy Burch).

Ginninderra. The last seat was down to a third Labor candidate and the Greens, with the former prevailing. In the race for the last two seats, Indra Esguerra of the Greens dropped out with 6129 votes to 6851 and 6830 for Labor’s Gordon Ramsay and Tara Cheyne. Of the two Labor incumbents, Yvette Berry was comfortably re-elected at the point where only three Labor candidates remained, while Chris Bourke was defeated. Incumbent Vicki Dunne was the first Liberal elected, and newcomer Elizabeth Kikkert the second, edging out party colleague Paul Sweeney by 5587 to 5272 at the relevant point of the count.

Kurrajong. It was always clear the result here would be two each for Labor and Liberal, plus one for the Greens. For Labor, Chief Minister Andrew Barr was elected on the primary vote, and the race for the second position eventually went to Rachel Stephen-Smith, who finished clear of Josh Ceramidas by 7699 votes to 5165. For the Liberals, newcomer Elizabeth Lee was first elected, with incumbent Steve Doszpot managing to edge out newcomer Candice Burch by 5823 to 4920. Greens leader Shane Rattenbury was the second candidate elected after Barr.

Murrumbidgee. Caroline Le Couteur joins Shane Rattenbury as a second Greens member after prevailing over a third Liberal. Liberal leader Jeremy Hanson was elected on the primary vote, while Bec Cody and Chris Steel emerged the winners of a fairly even race between the five non-incumbent Labor candidates. The last two seats came down to Le Couteur and two Liberals, incumbent Giulia Jones and newcomer Peter Hosking, in which Hosking dropped out with 6762 votes to Le Couteur’s 7571.

Yerrabi. This was always going to be three Labor, two Liberal. Labor’s elected candidates were incumbent Meegan Fitzharris, followed by Michael Pettersson and then Suzanne Orr, the latter finishing ahead of incumbent Jayson Hinder 5141 to 4471. For the Liberals, deputy leader Alistair Coe was first elected, followed by James Milligan.

Sunday morning.

So far as the party representation is concerned, there are clear results in Brindabella (three Liberal, two Labor), Kurrajong (two Labor, two Liberal, one Greens) and Yerrabi (three Labor, two Liberal), and seats in doubt in Ginninderra and Murrumbidgee, where Labor and Liberal have won two each, and the final seat is respectively down to Labor-versus-Greens and Liberal-versus-Greens. Both major parties thus stand to win 11 or 12 seats, with the Greens on at least one and perhaps as many as three. Thanks to the magic of electronic voting, the ACT Electoral Commission has been able to take away a lot of the guess work about the preference redistribution, by publishing an indicative result showing how things would look like if only the electronic vote counted. This amounts to perhaps a quarter of the total, electronic voting being available in the six pre-poll voting centres, which also function as ordinary polling booths on election day. The electorates in turn:

Brindabella. As the ACT Electoral Commission projection makes clear, the threat to the third Liberal from the Sex Party is apparent rather than real. On the primary vote, the Liberals currently have 2.4 quotas and the Sex Party has 0.5. However, the projection has the Liberals gaining 1.4 quotas as preferences are distributed, while the Sex Party can only manage half that much. Non-electronic voting slightly boosted the Sex Party and weakened the Liberals, but not by nearly enough to make a difference. The result will clearly be three Liberals (Andrew Wall, Mark Parton and Nicole Lawder) and two Labor (Mick Gentleman and Joy Burch).

Ginninderra. The projection shows Vicki Dunne and Elizabeth Kikkert of the Liberals both elected at the point where they are the party’s only two candidates left standing, leaving four seats to be divided up by the three leading Labor candidates plus Indra Esguerra of the Greens. Esguerra need finish ahead of only one of the Labor candidates, but the projection has her on 2208 versus 2629 for Yvonne Berry, 2522 for Tara Cheyne and 2436 for Chris Bourke. Bourke fell back in late counting and now trails Gordon Ramsay, but that is unlikely to change the general situation. The overall primary vote count for the parties is currently all but identical to the electronic vote count used for the projection, so a Labor win for the final seat would appear more likely than not. Clearly Yvette Berry will be one of Labor’s three, but otherwise there is very little to separate the other four candidates. Vicki Dunne will be re-elected for the Liberals, with Elizabeth Kikkert and Paul Sweeney all but tied for second place.

Kurrajong. The quota totals here are Labor 2.35, Liberal 1.77 and Greens 1.18, making it all but certain that the result will be 2-2-1. Andrew Barr polled a quota in his own right, and his 0.3 quota surplus could theoretically shape who wins second. However, the projection suggests Barr’s surplus divides between the other four candidates in the same proportion as their primary vote shares, which is to say in favour of second-placed Rachel Stephen-Smith over third-placed Josh Ceramidas. Stephen-Smith ends up leading 2345 to 1556 at the key point in the projection – this is based on a base primary vote of 5.4%, compared with 5.8% in the count overall, while Ceramidas remains on 4.7%. Newcomer Elizabeth Lee looks set to win the first Liberal seat, and the second is likely to go to incumbent Steve Doszpot, although the latter has another newcomer in Candice Burch at his heels. On the projection, Doszpot starts with 7.0% and Burch starts with 5.7%, after which both receive the exact same amount of preferences. Burch has since slightly narrowed the gap on the primary vote, now at 6.8% to 5.8%. Nonetheless, the likely final result here is Barr and Stephen-Smith for Labor, Lee and Doszpot for Liberal, and Shane Rattenbury the election’s only clear winner for the Greens.

Murrumbidgee. Labor and Liberal have a clean two seats apiece with Liberal fighting it out with the Greens for the last seat. The projection gives it to Greens candidate Caroline Le Couteuer, who nudges out a third Liberal by 2176 votes to 1802 at the key point of the count. The count this is based on is slightly less favourable to the Greens than the total count, with the Liberals on 42.0% of the primary vote rather than 41.7%, and the Greens on 11.1% rather than 10.8%. If the Liberals can only manage two, one will certainly be Jeremy Hanson, who has matched his Labor rival in recording 1.3 quotas, and the other will be incumbent Giulia Jones or newcomer Peter Hosking, who are respectively on 7.2% and 7.0% of the primary vote. Jones stands to benefit from the pro-incumbent vote that makes up Hanson’s surplus, and is likely to stay in front. Labor had no incumbents on its ticket, and its winners will be Chris Steel and Bec Cody.

Yerrabi. The quota totals are Labor 2.66, Liberal 2.12 and Greens 0.43, which can only mean three Labor, two Liberal. The elected members will certainly include incumbent Meegan Fitzharris and newcomer Michael Pettersson, and almost certainly a second newcomer in Suzanne Orr, who leads incumbent Jayson Hinder 7.3% to 6.3% and gets a better flow of preferences on the projection. Alistair Coe is a clear winner of the first Liberal seat, and looks set to be joined by James Milligan, whose 7.5% to 6.2% lead over Jacob Vadakkedathu is projected to widen on preferences.

Saturday night

10.06pm. Labor have slipped back in Kurrajong, which probably scotches that vague possibility of three seats there. The ABC computer is saying Labor 11, Liberal 10 and Greens one with three undecided, which would refer to Brindabella, where the Sex Party continues to incrementally improve, but faces the difficulty that the third strongest Liberal, Nicole Lawder, is slightly outpolling the combined Sex Party vote; Ginninderra, where the last seat could go to a third Labor or to the Greens; and Murrumbidgee, where the last seat could go to a Liberal or the Greens.

9.29pm. The ACTEC’s provisional preference counts are giving me a headache, but Kevin Bonham points to big preference leakage after Andrew Barr’s election, which diminishes the possibility I canvassed of a 3-1-1 result.

9.02pm. Sex Party strengthening still further in Brindabella with 74.0% counted: 0.50 quotas to 2.45 for Liberal. Surely a big chance now of two Labor, two Liberal, one Sex Party.

8.58pm. Far from fading with the counting of the ordinary vote, the Sex Party in Brindabella is up from 0.45 to 0.48 with 68.6% now counted.

8.52pm. I’ve been taking for granted a 2-2-1 result in Kurrajong, but in keeping with their overall poor show, it may be worse than that for the Liberals – they have 1.59 quotas versus 2.51 for Labor, suggesting 3-1-1 can’t be ruled out. That might even get them to a majority, if they can pull ahead of the Greens in Ginninderra.

8.50pm. Antony’s matched primary votes swings: Labor up 1.%, Libearl down 3.9%, Greens down 0.5%.

8.48pm. Still a lottery for the second and possibly third Labor seats in Ginninderra: Gordon Ramsay 3200, Tara Cheyne 2960, Kim Fischer 2845, Chris Bourke 2754.

8.42pm. The Ginninderra count has just shot up from 37.2% counted to 64.8%, and Labor is up from 2.52 quotas to 2.53, and the Greens are down from 0.59 to 0.57. Incumbents Yvette Barry (Labor) and Vicki Dunne (Liberal) are home, but the intra=party contests are otherwise extremely tight.

8.30pm. The latest update in Murrumbidgee, where 34.1% are now counted, is slightly to the advantage of the Liberals, who are up from 2.50 quotas to 2.54, but the Greens are on 0.64 and Antony Green rates them more likely than the Liberals to get the last seat. Brindabella and Yerrabi counts are now over 50%, and aren’t bearing out hopeful Liberal talk of a dramatically different trend on polling booth votes.

8.20pm. Regarding my musings concerning the Sex Party in Brindabella, Antony Green points out they have a problem in the even spread of support for the various Liberal candidates, which will make it difficult for them to pull ahead during the preference distribution.

8.10pm. Yerrabi count now up to 44.2%, and it’s clearly Labor three, Liberal two. Meegan Fitzharris and Michael Petersson will win two of the Labor seats, but the third is up in the air, with Suzanne Orr leading and incumbent Jayson Hinder struggling. James Mulligan likely to join Alistair Coe as the second Liberal.

7.52pm. The ACTEC has published interim preference distributions suggesting Labor rather than the Greens will get the last seat in Ginninderra, and the Greens rather than the Liberals will get it in Murrumbidgee. That suggests a final result of Labor 12, Liberal 11 and Greens two.

7.44pm. I haven’t had much to say about the strong Sex Party performance in Brindabella, but with 26.9% counted they’re well clear of the Greens (7.1% to 5.2%), and it’s entirely possible that they could win the seat at the expense of the third Liberal on Greens preferences – assuming polling booth votes don’t prove very different from pre-poll ones, which they may well do.

7.33pm. In Murrumbidgee, Jeremy Hanson is re-elected for the Liberals, but Giulia Jones isn’t quite shaking off Peter Hosking, although it’s possible both will win. Bec Cody and Chris Steel are firming as the Labor members. The Greens candidate who’s in the hunt is Caroline Le Couteur.

7.31pm. In Yerrabi, Labor’s Meegan Fitzharris is re-elected and will be joined by Michael Petersson, but it’s anyone’s guess who the third Labor member will be. For the Liberals, Alistair Coe has been re-elected and looks likely to be joined by James Milligan.

7.30pm. So to summarise: 3-2 to Liberal in Brindabella; 2-2 in Ginninderra, with the last seat Labor versus Greens; 2-2-1 in Kurrajong; 2-2 in Murrumbidgee, with the last seat either Liberals or Greens; and 3-2 to Labor in Yerrabi.

7.28pm. Shane Rattenbury has clearly been re-elected, but beyond that the Greens have only two possibilities, being in a struggle with the Liberals for the final seat in Murrumbidgee, which will determine whether the Liberals finish on 11 or 12, and with Labor in Ginninderra.

7.25pm. Big leap forward in the Yerrabi count, now at 35.9% counted, and it’s all but confirmed now that Labor will win three seats to the Liberals two, which closes the door on the possibility of a Liberal majority.

7.16pm. Resulting firming in Kurrajong: two Labor (Andrew Barr and Rachel Stephen-Smith, although the latter might yet get displaced by a Labor colleague), two Liberal (Elizabeth Lee and Steve Doszpot) and one Greens (Shane Rattenbury).

7.13pm. A slight update to the Ginninderra numbers pushes the count over 30%, and it’s still clear the Liberals won’t get a third seat there. Still unclear which Labor and Liberal candidates will win seats, except that Vicki Dunne looks very likely to be one of the Liberals. Yvette Berry has a slight edge among the Labor candidates.

7.10pm. Now we’ve hit a lull in reporting of results after the electronic pre-polls. The laggard is Yerrabi, which just nudged from 8.2% counted to 11.3%, with the others around 25%. The Liberals have actually gone backwards on the updated Yerrabi numbers, which is bad news for them as their only path to victory involves them winning a third seat there. That’s certainly not going to happen with 2.09 quotas. Labor looking more likely to win a third seat than one going to the Greens. Still a long way to go though.

6.59pm. Now 8.2% counted in Yerrabi, and it’s not looking great for the Liberals on these numbers. So far, it looks the same as Ginninderra, with the final seat coming down to the Greens and a third Labor candidate, leaving the Liberals on two. Unless that changes, the Liberals look doomed to fall short.

6.57pm. Ginninderra still looking grim for the Liberals with nearly 30% counted. Result looks like either Labor three and Liberal two, or two each with one for the Greens. So the Liberals need three seats in Murrumbidgee and Yerrabi.

6.56pm. Brindabella looks settled: Wall, Parton and Lawder for Liberal, Burch and Gentleman for Labor. So the question remains whether the Liberals can make it to three in any two out of Ginninderra, Murrumbidgee and Yerrabi.

6.54pm. Murrumbidgee looking very important to the result, with a close race looming between a third Liberal and the Greens to win the final seat. Bec Cody and Chris Steel leading to win the two Labor seats.

6.53pm. Rachel Stephen-Smith leading the field to join Andrew Barr as Labor’s second member in Kurrajong.

6.52pm. Rapid progress now as the electronic pre-polls report. As noted, very little differentiation between party candidate votes in Ginninderra.

6.50pm. ABC computer quickly went from 4% to 11.3% counted in Kurrajong, and now the result looks as anticipated, with two Liberal, two Labor and one Greens. Elizabeth Lee looking to join incumbent Steve Doszpot (she is outpolling him) as the second Liberal.

6.49pm. Very, very close race between the Labor candidates in Ginninderra, with little differentiation between the two incumbents (Yvette Berry and Chris Bourke) and the three newcomers.

6.48pm. Surprisingly good early result for Liberals in Kurrajong, where I had simply assumed before they wouldn’t win three seats, but it’s probably a function of where the booth is.

6.48pm. ACTEC site isn’t coping and ABC doesn’t give booth results, so I’m flying blind as to where these results are coming from.

6.45pm. Comparing that Woden pre-poll result for Murrumbidgee with the overall Woden pre-poll in 2012 (remembering that pre-poll booths are set up to receive votes for all districts), Labor is down 4.5%, the Liberals are up 1.6%, and the Greens are all but unchanged.

6.43pm. FIrst result from Ginninderra didn’t look brilliant for the Liberals. Very early days, but if that continues the Liberals will have only one path to victory, with Yerrabi as well as Murrumbidgee needing to come through for them with a third seat.

6.40pm. Antony discussing a result from Brindabella, which does little to disturb the expectation that the Liberals will win three here and Labor two, although the Australian Sex Party is polling well with 6.6%. As anticipated, Mark Parton looks placed to become the third Liberal, with all four incumbents looking to be returned.

6.37pm. First result is the Woden pre-poll booth from Murrumbdigee. It provides no evidence of independents doing particularly well, and suggests Giulia Jones can’t take for granted being one of the two Liberals elected, if indeed there are are only two, with new Liberal Peter Hosking outpolling her. Antony Green’s projection says the Labor vote is down 6% to 7%.

6pm. Welcome to live coverage of the Australian Capital Territory election count, for which polls have now closed. Results can be followed here at the Electoral Commission site, or here at the ABC.