Moral majority

Yesterday, the Australian Electoral Commission performed an act which in a rational world would have excited no interest. Since last weekend the commission has featured a “national two party preferred result” on the front page of its Virtual Tally Room, which has assumed tremendous psychological interest as Labor’s margin has steadily eroded from 0.6 per cent to 0.4 per cent. However, the tally had a flaw which biased it in Labor’s favour: there were no Labor-versus-Coalition figures available from strongly conservative Kennedy, Lyne, New England or O’Connor, where the notional two-candidate preferred counts conducted on election night involved independents. This was only balanced out by left-wing Melbourne, where Labor and the Greens were correctly identified as the front-running candidates for the notional count. For whatever reason, the AEC decided yesterday to level the playing field by excluding seats where the notional preference count candidates had been changed since election night, which in each case meant left-wing seats where the Liberals had finished third to the Greens (Batman and Grayndler) or Andrew Wilkie (Denison). The result was an instant 0.4 per cent drop in Labor’s score, reducing them to a minuscule lead that was soon rubbed out by further late counting.

In fact, very little actually changed in yesterday’s counting, which saw a continuation of the slow decline in the Labor total that is the usual pattern of late counting. The media, regrettably, has almost entirely dropped the ball on this point. Mark Simkin of the ABC last night reported that Labor’s lead had been eradicated by the “latest counting”, as opposed to an essentially meaningless administrative decision. Lateline too informed us that Labor’s two-party vote had “collapsed”, and Leigh Sales’ opening question to Julie Bishop on Lateline was essentially an invitation to gloat about the fact. Most newspaper accounts eventually get around to acknowledging the entirely artificial nature of the 50,000-vote reversal in Labor’s fortunes, but only after reporting in breathless tones on the removal of votes that will eventually be put back in.

The reality is that nobody knew who had the lead on the two-party vote yesterday morning, and nothing happened in the day to make anybody any the wiser. The Prime Minister equally had no idea on election night when she made her ill-advised claim to the two-party majority mantle. Only when all seats have reported Labor-versus-Coalition counts, which is probably still a few weeks away, will we be able to say for sure. The best we can do at present is to construct a projection based on the votes counted and our best assumptions as to how the gaps in the vote count data will be filled when all the figures are in.

At present we have completed “ordinary” polling day totals for all electorates and advanced counts of postal votes in most cases, but there has been no progress yet on absent or pre-poll votes in roughly half. Where counting of any of these three categories has been conducted, I have projected the party results on to the expected total of such votes (derived from the “declaration vote scrutiny progress” for absent and pre-poll votes, and from the number of applications for postal votes discounted by 16 per cent as per experience from 2007). Where no counting of a particular category has been conducted, I have compared the parties’ 2007 vote share in that category with their ordinary vote share, and applied that difference to the ordinary vote from this election. For example, the 2007 Liberal two-party vote in Canberra was 7.19 per cent higher than their ordinary vote share, so their 40.54 per cent ordinary vote at the current election has been used to project an absent vote share of 47.73 per cent.

For Batman, Grayndler and Denison, I have used the figures from the two-party Labor-versus-Liberal counts that were conducted in these seats from ordinary votes on election night, calculated the swing against the ordinary vote in 2007 and projected it over the expected absent, pre-poll and postal totals. For Melbourne, New England and Kennedy, where no Labor-versus-Coalition figures are available, I have used preference shares derived from the Labor-versus-Coalition counts from the 2007 election to determine the swing on ordinary votes, and projected that swing through the other categories. It’s with Lyne and O’Connor that things get crude, as we have no case study of how Rob Oakeshott’s or Wilson Tuckey’s preferences split between Labor and Nationals candidates. For O’Connor, which has at least been a Labor-Liberal-Nationals contest at successive elections, I have crudely arrived at a 7.9 per cent swing against Labor derived from the primary vote swing plus moderated by a 70 per cent share of the swing in favour of the Greens. The best I could think to do for Lyne was average the two-party swings from the neighbouring electorates, producing a 5.14 per cent swing against Labor.

Plug all that in and here’s what you get:

Labor 6,313,736 (50.02 per cent)
Coalition 6,307,924 (49.98 per cent)

In other news, Andrew Wilkie says the two-party vote total is “not relevant” in determining which party he will back. Good for him.

UPDATE: An Essential Research poll has it at 50-50, which is “unchanged” – I’m not sure if this is in comparison with the election result or a previously unpublished Essential result from a week ago. Basically no change on preferred prime minister. UPDATE 2: The 50-50 from last week was indeed an unpublished Essential result from their rolling two-week average, which they understandably felt was not worth publishing under the circumstances.

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.

3,640 comments on “Moral majority”

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  2. [She was too measured today. In fact, I would say very sombre in her approach. Very evenkeeled. There is no chance it could be seen that she is cracking under pressure.]

    I agree victoria. I was being facetious about the MSM. Haven’t check their tweets to see their reaction yet.

  5. On ABC tv, it has just been reported that the indies will not make a decision who they will support until sometime next week.

  6. It is reported by the AEC that the 3,000 votes at Oaklands Park PPVC in Boothby will be deleted permanently from the count, and the rest of the count will continue as normal.

    Surely this can’t be legal? 3,000 people lose their democratic right?

  7. She was decidedly Prime Ministerial. She smashed the press’ nasty little assumptions and interpretations that had run through the campaign.

    She also appeared strong, in control, and quite aware that she no longer had to pander to the press — but rather do the right thing in terms of the tug-of-war with Abbott.

    She reminded them all of what Labor had done, in terms policy generally, as well for regional Australia and parliamentary reform.

    Let’s see what Tone has to offer????

  10. Grey, @493
    [Do tell voice of truth, what claims to legitimacy does the Coalition have?

    They watched their Mothers and Fathers get married.]

    I was going to post a reply to tvot, but I bow to your superior rejounder. 😆

  16. [Surely this can’t be legal? 3,000 people lose their democratic right?]
    Would be fairer to give the electorate another vote. I would be very peeved if my vote become null & void due to tampering.

  17. [She was decidedly Prime Ministerial. She smashed the press’ nasty little assumptions and interpretations that had run through the campaign.]
    Maybe she should have tried that… oh, about FIVE WEEKS AGO.

  18. [Is Abbott due at the Press Club this week?]

    haven’t heard — but he can’t let such a strong performance go unmet. The trouble with the press club is he can’t run away if the questions get a little difficult.

    Maybe he’ll hold another “I am a big strong man so I must be PM … oh and STOP THE BOATS!”

  19. The pollies better watch out, the rest of us might notice things are chugging along quite nicely without them. 🙂

  20. [Electoral officer in SA Chris Drury says removing the votes from the Boothby count has reduced sitting Liberal Andrew Southcott’s lead by 339.]

    have the counted the postals etc yet

    how could this happen, so they dont know if they where counted or where not counted.

  21. [Where did you hear that?]

    victoria – article in Weekend Magazine before 07 election. I kept it and will try to find it. It was very enlightening on Opus Dei as up until then I really knew nothing much about it.

    Was the Oaklands Park count mentioned before it was pulled. Is there any info on the distribution of the 3,000 votes. Was Southcott in the lead before that box was counted? How do we find out the info.

  24. [The pollies better watch out, the rest of us might notice things are chugging along quite nicely without them. :)]
    Completely hypothetical: how would it affect the mood of the electorate if there was a major, unexpected crisis? Let’s say a large terrorist attack overseas which killed a few Aussies, or a US-Iran showdown?

  25. So hold on, there isn’t going to be an investigation?

    What is this shit about legal advice? Sounds like bad advice to me, and im sure if it negatively affected the Libs, we wouldn’t hear the end of it.

  26. I was impressed with the way Julia’s staff had the information re the 2PP figure for her for the Press Club. If Reilly asked that question perhaps he hadn’t been brought up to date on the count. It made him look silly anyway.

  27. [Puff, the Magic Dragon.
    Posted Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 2:09 pm | Permalink
    The pollies better watch out, the rest of us might notice things are chugging along quite nicely without them.]

    funny you should say that the 10 days we didnt have them was bliss
    nothing on the news no one being interviewed,
    we thought the same, we could just each take turns in running the place considering the size not bad idea really

  29. The Senate aggregate result is Labor+Greens 21, Coalition 18, one undecided but probably DLP, who will side with the Coalition maybe 75% of the time. So the “united left” clearly won the Senate election, as they did in 2007 (Labor+Greens 19, Coalition 16, Xenophon 1).

  30. [It is reported by the AEC that the 3,000 votes at Oaklands Park PPVC in Boothby will be deleted permanently from the count, and the rest of the count will continue as normal.

    Surely this can’t be legal? 3,000 people lose their democratic right?]

    This sounds like a job for GetUp! To the votecave!

  31. Patrick Bateman,

    I would think the independents would fall in behind the incumbent government very quickly, at least for supply and confidence, until the crisis had passed.

  32. It has negatively impacted on the Libs. They lost about 350 votes more than Labor did (I assume that is one of the reasons for Labor moving ahead in the TPP).

  33. The booth that is being deleted heavily favoured Southcott, apparently.

    Still, I don’t think the AEC can/should just go around ‘deleting’ booths!

  34. i[s reported by the AEC that the 3,000 votes at Oaklands Park PPVC in Boothby will be deleted permanently from the count, and the rest of the count will continue as normal]

    who do we protest to this could change a lot of things.

    how can they just do that..

  35. i[s reported by the AEC that the 3,000 votes at Oaklands Park PPVC in Boothby will be deleted permanently from the count, and the rest of the count will continue as normal]

    who do we protest to this could change a lot of things.

    how can they just do that..

  36. [Patrick, the 🙂 was a cue that it was an attempt at a joke.]
    I realised that 🙂

    It just reminded me of something that’s crossed my mind a few times. Ordinarily a disaster would cause a pro-government swing in the mood of the electorate. But what if there is no government?

    As you say, we’re getting along fine without them so far, anyway… people might even realise that we don’t actually need several phonebooks worth of new laws to interfere with our lives every year if this keeps up.

  38. [BK – haven’t had a chance to read back posts yet but … did you see SophieM on Agenda this morning?

    I is definitely leavin’ this here nest if she is on the front bench!! Unfortunately, she woman typifies everything that is miserable about her type of Liberal woman. Together with the 2 Bishops she gives someone like Judy Moylan a bad name.

    It seems as tho she has a nasty windup key in her backside and the baloney bubbles out when the cameras roll. I guess the remote will be used a lot in the next 3 years.]
    BH
    Said lady drove me out of the house this morning and I have just got back.
    A number of posts referred to Mirabella’s “charms”.
    I agree wholeheartedly with you comments about the woman. I had her pegged as a shocker way back in the Monarchy debate when she was Sophie Panopolous.

  39. my say,

    It doesn’t matter who is favoured in the booth, it’s the principle.

    I feel very uncomfortable in just deleting 3000 votes from a count.

  40. The AEC cannot just remove 3,000 votes from an election without some consequences!! There WILL be a challenge to the court of disputed returns, even though Southcott will sit in parliament until the case is heard. Still more for the Indies to think about, 73 votes for Tone not certain.

  41. [There WILL be a challenge to the court of disputed returns, even though Southcott will sit in parliament until the case is heard.]

    Why? The final result cannot be changed by that box of votes. What do you want the AEC to do?

  42. If Southcott is well ahead, and removing these votes marginally hurts his position but doesn’t threaten his re-election, then who is going to bother to challenge this?

  43. [This sounds like a job for GetUp! To the votecave!]

    Lol.

    A by-election in Boothby would be the most interesting by-election I could think of. It would be brilliant.

  44. Benji@539

    The AEC cannot just remove 3,000 votes from an election without some consequences!! There WILL be a challenge to the court of disputed returns, even though Southcott will sit in parliament until the case is heard. Still more for the Indies to think about, 73 votes for Tone not certain.

    Mr X resigns from the senate and stands in the by election?

  46. PB @ 534
    [people might even realise that we don’t actually need several phonebooks worth of new laws to interfere with our lives every year if this keeps up.]
    I read somewhere that there are now so many laws in the usa nobody could ever collate all of them.

  47. Southcott may be well ahead but it is the fact that there are 3,000 electors who did not have a vote? The fact also remains that these votes were not under scrutiny for some amount of time. The AEC may dispute ballots were indanger of being altered but who can know for certain. If the ALP were ahead in this seat, I would still support the challenge out of respect for people’s right to vote!

  50. Agree PSephons – thats the one clear result of election 2010. Center-left Senate unequivocally delivered bu the people of Asutralia.

    Any chance of that being the next MSM “gotya” talking point?

    Personally, I think it breaks the stalemate in ALPs favour. :0)

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