Category: Victorian Politics

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Live commentary

End of Saturday night. My system is probably showing its limitations by projecting the Greens to finish second, as independent Tony Wolfe has a bare lead over them on the primary vote and I imagine will do better on preferences. So the 12.7% Liberal margin on the Liberal-versus-Wolfe two-candidate preferred count, which will likely increase a little on postals, is probably more meaningful than my projection of 17.9% over the Greens. Certainly it’s an easy win for Liberal candidate Wayne Farnham, although the 11% drop in their primary vote in the absence of competition from Labor, who polled 35.5% in 2018, is an uninspiring result.

7.36pm. The preference split is now looking more like what I would expect, or at least less unlike, favouring the independent 58-42. But it’s an academic point with the Liberals leading the TCP count 65-35. I notice my booth results map isn’t firing – I’ll look into that after all the results are in for the evening.

7.21pm. I think my results feature is behaving as it should now, with Wayne Farnham and Tony Wolfe set as the TCP candidates, although my projection says the Greens are more likely to finish second. It turns out preferences are splitting about evenly between Farnham and Wolfe, where I had earlier assumed they would flow massively to Wolfe. So this looks like the anticipated walkover for Farnham, though with a rather soft primary vote.

7.05pm. Nine booths in and I’ve got the projected Liberal primary vote up to 42.9%, which is more like it for them. The TCP count clearly isn’t Liberal versus Greens – the lower end of my results display won’t work until I rejig it to accommodate this.

6.56pm. This is a pretty steep drop for the Liberals in the three booths concerned compared with where they were in 2018, such that I’m presently predicting them to end with a primary vote of 37.8%, which would be dangerously low for them.

6.50pm. Three booths in on the primary vote, Liberal primary at 44.8%, Tony Wolfe looking clearly the strongest independent and slightly outpolling the Greens. Still don’t know what’s happening with the TCP count.

6.30pm. The VEC feed is updating every 15 minutes. The 6:30pm update is through but there are still no results in it. My results page says the latest update is 6pm – I believe this will remain unchanged until there is actually a result in (UPDATE: I’ve fixed this). I’m assuming for the time being that the two-candidate preferred count will be Liberal versus Greens, but won’t actually know until there are results to report.

Preview

The Victorian state election reaches its denouement today with the election for the seat of Narracan, which was unable to proceed on November 26 due to the death of Nationals candidate Shaun Gilchrist six days earlier. Narracan was never a target for Labor, but with the retirement of incumbent Gary Blackwood, who had held it for the Liberals since 2006, the seat appeared to be a possibility for the Nationals, who ended up with a notably better story to tell about their election result than the Liberals. However, the Nationals have decided not to put forward a candidate for the fresh election, which together with Labor’s more predictable forfeit make the contest look like a walkover for the new Liberal candidate, Wayne Farnham.

There is nonetheless a field of eleven candidates, and the possibility one of the independents may have enough critical mass to become competitive with the help of strong flows of preferences. The most outwardly promising of the three would appear to be Annemarie McCabe, the mayor of Baw Baw Shire. Also in the field are Tony Wolfe, a former Baw Baw deputy mayor who describes himself as a “coal worker advocating for renewable energy”, and Ian Honey, a project facilitator and former Bairnsdale councillor.

If only for the sake of completeness, I have put together a profile page for the seat. Live results will be published on this site following the usual format from 6pm.

The Victorian Electoral Commission will press the button on Legislative Council counts for each region in alphabetical order from 10am today, over what is expected to be 90 minutes with each taking 10 to 20 minutes to run. As explained below, Labor seems certain of 15 seats, down from 18 in 2018; the Liberals will win between 11 and 13, up from 10, with the Nationals up from one to two; the Greens will win two to four, up from one; Legalise Cannabis will win two or three; the Democratic Labor Party will win one or two; Shooters and Animal Justice will remain on one seat each, with One Nation also to win a seat for the first time; and the Liberal Democrats and Transport Matters, who respectively won two and one in 2018, to win either zero or one. The left, if taken to include Labor, the Greens, Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice, will have 21 out of 40 seats, increasing to 22 if the Greens edge out Transport Matters in North-Eastern Metropolitan.

UPDATE: The final result is Labor 15, Liberal 12 and Nationals two, Greens four, Legalise Cannabis two, and one each for Liberal Democrats, Animal Justice, Shooters, DLP and One Nation.

Eastern Victoria. A clear result of two Labor, one Liberal, one Nationals and one Shooters.

North-Eastern Metropolitan. Labor and Liberal have two seats apiece, and while the ABC projects (UPDATE: Antony Green objects to this characterisation in comments) Transport Matters to win the final seat, the Greens will presumably close a narrow 16.71% to 16.52% gap through below-the-line votes. UPDATE: So it has proved.

Northern Metropolitan. The first four seats will go two Labor, one Liberal and one Greens, and there seems little doubt the fifth will go to Adem Somyurek, running for the DLP. The ABC projects Somyurek to land well clear of a 16.67% quota with 18.31%, which would have to erode substantially for the alternative scenario to play out in which Fiona Patten of the Reason Party retains her seat. UPDATE: Which indeed did not occur.

Northern Victoria. This looks like a clear result in which Labor, Liberal, the Nationals, One Nation and Animal Justice each win a seat, although Kevin Bonham is keeping open the possibility that the second Labor candidate edges out One Nation for reasons I can’t wrap my head around. UPDATE: Didn’t happen.

South-Eastern Metropolitan. Labor wins two, the Liberals one and Legalise Cannabis one, with the Liberal Democrats projected to win the final seat with a margin of 17.00% to 16.33% over the second Liberal, who seems likely to prevail on below-the-line votes. UPDATE: Apparently not – the Liberal Democrats retains the seat, leaving a Legalise Cannabis gain from Labor the only change on 2018.

Southern Metropolitan. A clear result of Labor two, Liberal two and Greens one.

Western Metropolitan. This looks like two Labor, one Liberal and one Legalise Cannabis, with the last seat a race between the second Liberal, projected by the ABC to win with 17.08%, and Bernie Finn of the DLP, projected to 16.25%. However, Kevin Bonham observes that below-the-line votes will reduce the size of the transfer of Legalise Cannabis and Labor preferences to the Liberals when the former are excluded at the second last count. UPDATE: But not by enough to cost them the seat.

Western Victoria. Labor and Liberal will win two each, with the last seat a race between Legalise Cannabis and the Greens, with Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party perhaps an outside chance. The ABC projects a comfortable win for Legalise Cannabis at the last count over Justice, but this comes after they narrowly survive exclusion at the previous count with 9.73% to the Greens’ 9.43%. If they were to drop out here, the projection would have the Greens winning the last seat with about 16.9% to Justice’s 16.4%. UPDATE: The Greens get the seat rather than Legalise Cannabis.

The VEC has also published two-party preferred totals from the fourteen seats where the two-candidate preferred candidates were not between Labor and the Coalition, which by my reckoning produces a statewide result of Labor 1,992,489 (54.97%) to Coalition 1,632,103 (45.03%).

Click here for full Victorian election results updated live.

Friday, December 8

The last in doubt seat was determined in Labor’s favour today, with the preference distribution in Bass showing Labor incumbent Jordan Crugnale the winner with 20,803 votes (50.24%) over 20,601 (49.76%) for Liberal candidate Alan Brown. Labor thus emerges with 56 lower house seats, up one from their total in 2018; the Liberals on 19, down two, and the Nationals on nine, up three, with one or the other presumably to win Narracan when the supplementary election is held; the Greens four, up one; and independents from three to zero.

In the upper house count, the ABC’s projected margin for Transport Matters incumbent Rod Barton over Aiv Puglielli of the Greens at the final count for North-Eastern Metropolitan has narrowed to 16.95% to 16.38%, at which point the Greens could be confident that below-the-line votes would win them the seat. Barton is also a hair’s breadth away from exclusion behind Sustainable Australia at an earlier point in the count.

Thursday, December 8

Labor chalked up another win today when the button was pressed on Pakenham, revealing that their candidate Emma Vulin prevailed over David Farrelly of the Liberals at the last by 19,587 (50.39%) to 19,280 (49.61%). That gets Labor to 55 seats, which most likely will get to 56 when the button is pressed tomorrow on Bass, barring the emergence of some as yet undetected anomaly that up-ends the 211 vote margin on the two-candidate preferred count.

Wednesday, December 7

The preference distribution for Pakenham, earlier promised for today, will now be finalised tomorrow according to the VEC. That remains the only seat in doubt now that Northcote is decided for Labor, although I note that the ABC still rates Bass, where Labor leads by 211, as in doubt. There too the VEC is promising a preference distribution tomorrow. The preference distribution in Preston established that independent Gaetano Greco did not in fact make the final count, at which Labor retained the seat ahead of the Greens by a margin of 2.1%.

Tuesday, December 6

A preference distribution has been run for Northcote, which I believe was conducted electronically, with Labor incumbent Kat Theophanous making it over the line at the final count with 21,413 votes (50.22%) to Greens candidate Campbell Gome’s 21,229 (49.78%). The VEC site says “a recheck is taking place for this district”, but the ABC reports the figures as final.

In the other yet-to-be-called seat, Pakenham, Antony Green relates that the re-check of first preferences has shown up anomalies that will put Labor ahead when corrected, with the published results remaining those of the initial count. This involved an increase in the number of votes designated informal, which cut 274 from the Liberal primary vote tally compared with 111 from Labor’s. The difference is sufficient to cancel out the Liberals’ 90 vote lead on the two-candidate preferred count, though not so handily that you would rule out further anomalies tipping the result back the other way. The matter will seemingly be clarified when a full preference distribution is conducted tomorrow. Should the result go Labor’s way, they will have repeated their feat from 2018 of winning 55 seats, despite a statewide two-party swing that looks to be in excess of 3%.

Monday, December 5

My previous update dropped the ball with respect to Northcote, where a 1523-994 break on absent votes brought the Greens right back into contention. Labor now leads by 189 with the outstanding vote likely to consist of around 1500 postals, of which the latest batch broke an even 123-123, and a handful of provisionals.

The Liberals have opened a 90 vote lead in Pakenham, after the latest early votes broke 450-356 and postals broke 80-67, outweighing a 208-189 break to Labor on absents. There are still about 1500 postals to be accounted for, and since these have broken 51-49 in favour of the Liberals so far, this seems assured to remain close.

Mornington continues to edge out of reach of independent candidate Kate Lardner, with absents (349-338), early votes (268-203) and postals (110-102) all breaking slightly the way of Liberal candidate Chris Crewther, whose lead is out from 491 votes to 575. My results system is now calling it for Crewther, leaving only Northcote and Pakenham in doubt.

In the upper house count, second Liberal candidate Joe McCracken’s position in Western Victoria has strengthened appreciably, leaving him a likely winner over Stuart Grimley of Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party. The Greens and Legalise Cannabis remain in a race for a third left-wing seat, with Labor and now Liberal on course for two seats each.

Sunday, December 4

There are probably three lower house seats that are still in real doubt, not counting Narracan which will presumably be won by the Liberals or Nationals. This gets Labor to 54 seats with a best case scenario of 56; the Coalition to 26 with a best case scenario of 29; the Greens to four; and one outside possibility for an independent.

The most remarkable of the close races is Pakenham which was tied as of Friday, before Liberal candidate David Farrelly opened up a three-vote lead after a batch of absents were added over the weekend. Farrelly held a 220 vote lead mid-week before postals broke 964-781 to Labor and early votes did so by 457-420.

Labor holds a 285 lead in Bass, out from 53 after favourable results on early vote (1768-1643), absents (539-438) and recent batches of postals (826-820). Postals, of which the first batch broke strongly to the Liberals but more recent arrivals have been neutral, should account for most of the remainder, although there may also be significant numbers of outstanding absents.

Liberal candidate Chris Crewther’s lead over independent Kate Lardner in Mornington is now at 491 votes, out from 353, after postals favoured him 751-717 and early votes did so 413-329. The former were less strong for Crewther than earlier postals, of which at least 3000 yet to come. Together with the fact that further absents are likely outstanding, this means Crewther can’t be considered home and hosed quite yet, though he is clearly a short-priced favourite

Elsewhere, Paul Mercurio is probably home for Labor in Hastings, his lead out from 659 to 803 after the lastest postals broke 151-116 his way and absents broke 290-221. Labor’s lead over the Greens in Northcote is down from 874 to 781 after a batch of early votes favoured the Greens 1645-1454, outweighing an 832-734 break to Labor on the latest postals.

Now, finally, to the upper house, where the ABC is currently projecting a final result of Labor 15, Coalition 13, Legalise Cannabis three, Greens two and (deep breath) Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, Liberal Democrats, Animal Justice, Shooters Fishers and Farmers, Transport Matters, the Democratic Labour Party and One Nation on one each. However, the ABC projections assume all votes are above-the-line and duly follow the group voting tickets, which likely means an over-estimation of the number of micro-party winners. To deal with the eight regions in turn, all links below being to the ABC projections:

Continue reading “Victorian election: late counting week two”

Click here for full Victorian election results updated live.

Wednesday night

It is now acknowledged that John Pesutto has won Hawthorn for the Liberals, and Mornington continues to drift away from the only other teal independent in the hunt, Kate Lardner. In the latter case, today’s early votes broke 902-726 to Liberal candidate Chris Crewther, who now leads by 353. In Pakenham, the two-party votes were added for the early voting batch that appeared in the primary votes count only yesterday, and it broke to the Liberals less heavily than I had anticipated — 1135-907, turning a Labor leading of eight votes into a Liberal lead of 220. There’s evidently a complex mix in the race for the final seat in South-Eastern Metropolitan region, because the ABC’s projection now has it going to Legalise Cannabis, overtaking the Liberal Democrats who in turn overtook the second Liberal yesterday.

Tuesday night

I had a paywalled piece in Crikey today noting where the result for Labor in swing terms was particularly good (the same Chinese-heavy eastern suburbs that turned against the Liberals at the federal election) and particularly poor (the party’s northern and western Melbourne heartlands, which likewise were relatively soft for the party at the federal election). I also joined Ben Raue of The Tally Room to discuss the results on his podcast.

Turning to the count: it was a better day for the Liberals in Bass, where Aaron Brown went from 225 behind to 53 ahead after early votes broke 835-663 his way, and Mornington, where Chris Crewther’s lead went from 177 to 337 on a 747-588 break in early votes. The Liberals also got a strong batch of early votes in Pakenham, and while they are yet to be added to the two-party count, the primary vote results have boosted my Liberal two-party projection there from 50.0% to 50.8% and left my system not far off calling it for them. My system also no longer rates Benambra as in doubt.

Labor’s one good show was in Hastings, where the latest early votes batch broke 747-660 to Paul Mercurio, boosting his lead from 470 to 557. The fresh two-candidate preferred counts in Albert Park, Brighton, Melton, Point Cook, and Werribee yesterday caused by projections in those seats to go haywire yesterday, but this is fixed now.

While I still haven’t taken a serious look at the upper house count, I note that the ABC’s projection now has Adem Somyurek taking the last seat in Northern Metropolitan for the DLP ahead of Fiona Patten of Reason, though I have a notion that Somyurek may do less than brilliantly on below-the line votes. David Limbrick of the Liberal Democrats also has his nose in front of the second Liberal now in South-Eastern Metropolitan.

Monday night

There was no significant progress today, which was spent mostly on rechecking. That will continue today, but more interesting will be the addition of as-yet-uncounted early votes that were cast outside the home district. As noted below, new indicative two-candidate preferred counts are being conducted in five seats where the wrong two candidates were picked for the count on election nights, but in no case is the result in doubt. Happily, the Victorian Electoral Commission has a page on its website where such news is related in detail on a daily basis.

Sunday night

I spent yesterday fixing bugs in my results system, and now this is done to a reasonably satisfactory level, it should resume updating promptly, at least when I have an internet connection. Most of today’s activity will involve rechecking, but fresh two-candidate counts will be conducted in seats where the initial counts picked the wrong candidates – Albert Park, Brighton, Melton, Point Cook, and Werribee – although in no case is the result in doubt.

My system is giving away 45 seats to Labor and has them ahead in a further 11, which would result in the extraordinary achivement of an increased majority if it stuck. Seats my system is not yet calling but almost certainly soon will are Bayswater, Footscray, Pascoe Vale, Glen Waverley and Yan Yean, which get Labor to 50; Caulfield, Polwarth and Rowville, which get the Liberals to 12; and Mildura and Shepparton, which get the Nationals to not far behind the Liberals on nine. I still have nothing to offer on the upper house result, but that will hopefully change over the next day or two.

Bass. Labor’s Jordan Crugnale needed an 0.8% swing to retain her seat after the redistribution, and after looking gone on election night, a 5.0% swing in her favour on early votes puts it at 1.4%. However, the early vote count of 15427 formal votes is nearly 6000 shy of the number cast, which presumably means one of the three centres hasn’t reported yet. If the outstanding centre is more conservative than the other two, the swing on early votes — which is not broken down between individual voting centres, as would be the case at a federal election — will drop considerably when it reports, perhaps taking Crugnale’s lead with it.

Benambra. The ABC has Liberal member Bill Tilley marked down as holding off two-time independent challenger Jacqui Hawkins, but my more conservative system only gets his probability to 85.9%. He leads by 1.1% on the raw two-candidate preferred count, which is all you’ll get from the ABC — I’m still using a method that presumes to project a final result, which narrows it to 0.8%. Booth and early votes came in about where Hawkins needed to knock off his 2.6% margin, but he’s picked up a 5.3% swing on 2354 postals, about as many of which are still to come.

Croydon. Liberal member David Hodgett had a slight swing against him on ordinary and early votes in a seat where he was defending a 1.0% margin, but the first half of around 8000 postal votes have swung 4.4% his way and he will more than likely get home.

Hastings. Paul Mercurio looks likely to gain a seat for Labor that had no margin at all after the redistribution, and which was being vacated with the retirement of Liberal member Neale Burgess. Ordinary, postal and early votes have all swung slightly his way, leaving him 470 votes ahead with most of the outstanding vote consisting of around 3000 postals and 2000 absents.

Hawthorn. My projection has John Pesutto’s current lead of 0.7% (480 votes) narrowing to 0.3% at the last, mostly because the Liberals did poorly on absent votes in 2018 (36.5% by my post-redistribution reckoning, compared with 44.7% all told), of which I would expect about 2000. However, his primary vote is up 6.1% on the 3055 postal votes counted, compared with about 3% down on ordinary and early votes, and my projection method doesn’t presume that offers any guide to the 4000 or so outstanding. If it does, he will get home fairly comfortably.

Mornington. The teals could emerge empty-handed after a promising start in Mornington fell foul of a 2635-1553 break in favour of Liberal candidate Chris Crewther on postals, leaving him 177 votes ahead with about 3800 further postals still to come. On the other, the Liberals did poorly in 2022 on absent votes, of which there should be about 2000.

Northcote. The Greens’ lower house performance failed to match expectations set to at least some extent by a media determined to hype any anti-Labor narrative to hand, most notably in their likely failure to win Northcote. The first 1651 postals have broken 1027-624 to Labor, a swing in their favour of 5.7% with about 3500 still to come, but the Greens handily won absents in 2018, of which there should be about 3000.

Pakenham. Labor had a notional 2.2% margin in this essentially new seat, and their candidate Emma Vulin ended Sunday with a lead of eight votes over Liberal rival David Farrelly. Labor lost the first 2121 postals by only 1104-1017, a swing of 4.8% in their favour. The question is likely whether an advantage to Farrelly on 3500 or so remaining postals outweights absents, which on my post-redistribution calculation favoured Labor 1230-828 last time.

Preston. Labor’s 1306 vote lead on the two-candidate preferred count will assuredly be enough to see off the Greens. But at Inside Story, Tim Colebatch offers a “scoop”: the final count will in fact be between Labor and independent Gaetano Greco, and it’s not inconceivable he will win. Labor is on 38.1% of the primary vote to Greco’s 14.9%, raising the question of how many voters for sundry left-wing concerns (Greens, Victorian Socialists, Animal Justice and Reason Australia) moved promptly to Labor after their first preference over Greco, a “long-time Darebin councillor and Labor activist”.

Ripon. Liberal member Louise Staley needed a 2.8% swing here post-redistribution, currently has only 0.7%. Labor’s raw lead is 1358, but there are around 8000 early votes outstanding and Staley won the first batch of postals 1814-1272 with about 4500 still to come.

Click here for full Victorian election results updated live.

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.

The Australian reports the Victorian election eve Newspoll has Labor leading 54.5-45.5, little changed from its 54-46 result three weeks ago, but less commanding than its 57.3-42.7 result at the 2018 election. The primary votes are Labor 38% (up one, compared with 42.9% in 2018), Coalition 35% (down two, compared with 35.2%) and Greens 12% (down one, compared with 10.7%). Daniel Andrews is down five on approval to 46% and up four on disapproval to 48%, while Matthew Guy has “gone from a net approval rating of -20 three weeks ago to -25”, with exact numbers not provided. Andrews’ lead as preferred premier has narrowed from 52-33 to 51-35. The poll was conducted Monday to Thursday from a sample of 1226.

I’ll publish a round-up of late horse race news tomorrow evening, but for this post I will focus on the details of tomorrow evening – in particular my live results system, which I’m confident will survive the rigours of an especially challenging election after performing well enough during the Victorian Electoral Commission’s test the other night. For those unfamiliar with it, you can see the results from the federal election here – it features projections, probability estimates, easily navigable booth results tables which I’m pretty sure will be the only place you’ll find swings at booth level, and mapped results displays if you click the button at the bottom of the page.

Given the inordinately large number of candidates, peaking at fifteen in Point Cook and Werribee (with Daniel Andrews’ seat of Mulgrave just behind on fourteen), the progress of much of the counting tomorrow night could be very slow. The VEC is also unusually leisurely in updating its results feed only every five minutes, though I personally don’t mind this – it’s about as much time as needed to absorb each new update.

In addition to the election day booth votes, for which primary vote and two-candidate preferred counts plus first preferences for the upper house will be counted on the night, counting of pre-polls and postals for the lower house will begin tomorrow evening, with the upper house to follow over the next two days. Out-of-district pre-polls and absent votes will start entering the count on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.