Click here for full display of Fadden by-election results.
Monday
Along with rechecking, a further batch of postals today broke 699-271 to the LNP.
Sunday
A second batch of postals was added today, breaking 1289-602 compared with 5601-2247 for the election night batch, or 68.2% for the LNP compared with 71.4%. Also added were 262 Special Hospital Team votes, which broke about evenly.
Saturday night
12.05am. End of counting for the evening, with the AEC having accounted for all available results on primary and two-party by the close of business. Around half of a likely final total of 16,000 or so postals have been counted, with the remainder accounting for all of a few of the votes still to come. Unless I’m missing something, that suggests a rather meagre turnout in the low seventies, compared with 85.6% in Aston. To that can be added an increase in the informal vote share from 4.4% to 6.2%, as compared with a stable 3.3% in Aston.
10.23pm. Large Helensvale pre-poll, with 11,918 formal votes, reports with par-for-the-course swings on the primary vote.
10.08pm. Labrador pre-poll has reported its TPP: 2.7% swing to LNP.
9.35pm. The Gold Coast North pre-poll booth — the one that did well for the LNP — is now in on two-party, showing a 6.3% swing to the LNP.
9.30pm. The Runaway Bay pre-poll becomes the third to report on the primary vote, and it’s a big one — 14,432 formal votes. Like Labrador (2544 formal votes) and unlike Gold Coast North (3435), the swings are more or less the same as the election day booths.
9.16pm. A second pre-poll centre, Labrador, has reported on the primary vote — whereas the Gold Coast North centre was better for the LNP than the election day vote in swing terms, this one is basically the same.
9.02pm. Bug fixed — no new results of consequence came in while I was doing it.
8.46pm. A minor bug in my results page: the projected swing is rounding to full (percentage) numbers and not the first decimal place as intended, so it flips between 2.0% and 3.0% as the projection falls below and above 2.5%. The actual projection is 2.51%.
8.45pm. The first pre-poll voting centre (Gold Coast North) is in, and the result is above-par for the LNP, their primary vote up 8.3% with Labor little changed.
8.15pm. After being solid for quite a while on 3.0%, my projection of the LNP two-party swing just fell to 2.0%.
8.10pm. David Speers on the ABC says Labor are projecting a 2.1% two-party swing, compared with my 3.0%.
7.56pm. Looking like a high informal vote rate of approaching 7%. This isn’t booth matched, but the informal vote for ordinary votes in 2022 was 4.6%. Compare and contrast Aston, where the informal vote was 3.3% at both the election and the by-election.
7.46pm. As Murray Watt points out on the ABC, the absence of the United Australia Party, who were worth 6.3% last year, needs to be taken into account in looking at primary vote swings. No doubt this explains the One Nation vote holding up, and probably hasn’t done the LNP any harm either.
7.38pm. Things seem to be settling in now: the LNP is up on the primary vote, Labor little changed, One Nation doing well to hold even amid a bigger field of candidates, Legalise Cannabis doing well to knock on the door of double figures, and a poor result for the Greens, who are probably losing vote share to Legalise Cannabis (who weren’t in the field last time). What might change all this is a different dynamic on pre-poll voting, which we won’t know about until a fair bit later in the night.
7.25pm. Good results for the LNP from Sanctuary Cove and Coombabah South push the swing out further, to what I’m projecting at 4.0% on two-party.
7.18pm. Now it’s clear everything is running smoothly, my obligatory request for donations, which you can make my clicking “Become a Supporter” in the blue band at the top of the page.
7.16pm. Four booths in now on TCP and my system is calling it for the LNP.
7.15pm. Six booths in now on the primary vote, coming in quick enough that I won’t be able to offer comment on them individually. The LNP’s good result at Pimpama East looks like an outlier amid an overall status quo result.
7.12pm. Studio Village in on TPP — 0.6% swing to LNP.
7.11pm. Greens running fifth, behind One Nation and Legalise Cannabis, both on double figures. Gold Coast not exactly a happy hunting ground for them.
7.09pm. Pimpama East booth is in, and it’s a bad result for Labor, who are down nearly 5% with the LNP up nearly 10%. My LNP win probability estimate is now out to 95%.
7.03pm. Another plug for the map display on my results page, which you can activate by clicking on the button at the bottom of the page. Numbers indicate the booth has recorded two-party preferred numbers, with the colour recording the party that won the booth (teal for LNP, red for Labor) and the number their share of TPP. Where only the primary vote is in, the dot is coloured to indicate the leading party. White dots denote no result yet. Click on whatever it is and a table will pop up showing full results.
6.59pm. Legalise Cannabis are on double figures, and One Nation are more than holding up despite more competition for the minor party vote.
6.55pm. The second booth to report on the primary vote is Studio Village at the southern end of the electorate, and like Alberton, it records little primary vote swing for either major party.
6.30pm. The TCP booth is now in from the Alberton booth (highly efficient work there) and it’s a 1.6% swing to the LNP. My projections will continue to work off estimates until the TCP count reaches 1%.
6.28pm. The booth interestingly has One Nation level with Labor, but this is a particularly weak booth for Labor.
6.24pm. Was being a bit conservative with my estimates of when results would start — there are actually some very small booths in the seat, and one, Alberton, has primary votes for us already. These show both major parties up slightly on the primary vote.
5.30pm. With half an hour to go before polls close, welcome to the Poll Bludger’s coverage of the Fadden by-election count. After polls close at 6pm, you will find through the above link live updated results, including full booth details in both tabular and map display (click on the button at the bottom of the page) and swing-based projections and probability estimates. This post will offer live commentary as the results come through, the first of which I imagine will be in a bit before 7pm.