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.
[Posted Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 2:18 pm | Permalink
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]
yes its democracy at risk dont we send people to third world countries to monitor elections, may be they should be coming to check ours as with abbott any way we would become one
If this election had been conducted under PR, with a 5% threshold, the result would have been Coalition 70, Labor 62, Greens 18, and we would now have a Gillard-Brown coalition government. I may have to change my mind about PR.
[73 votes for Tone not certain.]
Yes, if the margin is less than the number of deleted votes the court might well order another election for Boothby. Are there any precedents for this? We might have the ALP taking this to court because a pro-Southcott booth was omitted.
[If this election had been conducted under PR, with a 5% threshold, the result would have been Coalition 70, Labor 62, Greens 18, and we would now have a Gillard-Brown coalition government. I may have to change my mind about PR.]
Yeah, but the Monk, News Ltd and Mark Riley would all be saying Abbott should be PM because the Tories got the most votes and seats.
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.
[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.]
Me too!
It is not good enough to just scrap the count. What was the extent of tampering that the AEC won’t talk about?
If I was in that electorate I would much rather go through the pain of voting again than to just accept this. How do we know that this didn’t occur in several booths?
I wouldn’t accept this if I was in Boothby.
Psepho 527
Oh yeah, the united left. You should have told Rudd and Gillard that there was a united left
Rudd and Gillard spend a whole 3 years in parliament, trying to pass legislations with X and Fieldings, when all they had to do is invoke the united left. If only you had informed Rudd and Gillard about the united left, there would be a ETS, SPT, Alcopop, etc
Julia Gillard saying that (WTTE) ‘she would prefer an independent in the speakers chair’ is the only ‘news’ from the NPC today.
Andrew Wilkie saying he would not block supply or vote in a silly no confidence motion is the other news.
We are still no closer to forming a minority government. Does anyone know the earliest and latest date that Parliament can sit?
[ I may have to change my mind about PR.]
Necessity is the mother of all inventions
[Let’s see what Tone has to offer????]
Haven’t you heard Jen? He’ll be stopping the boats. How pathetic does he appear at the moment – his policies haven’t been thought through properly or costed at all, his slogans mean absolutely zero to the inds/greens and he’s been shown up by a PM that’s kept her cool and grace through this process (he doubly hates this because his opposite is a woo-man to boot!)
Poor tone, the boat telephone seemed like such a good idea at the time.
Psephos@550
That’s what I have been pointing out since the hung result. Presuming that at least some of the independents would agree to form a ‘group’ for election purposes, PR could assist them as well.
And if, as it appears, Labor intends to wave goodbye to the left vote permanently, then PR would be the only way they could achieve power regularly due to the permanently lowered primary vote.
So let’s get the HoR vote organised. Labor and the Greens can pass it in the Senate after 1 July.
You know it makes sense.
[Haven’t you heard Jen? He’ll be stopping the boats. How pathetic does he appear at the moment ]
And almost 50% of the nation voted for him. I think that is the scariest point of all.
[Rudd and Gillard spend a whole 3 years in parliament, trying to pass legislations with X and Fieldings, when all they had to do is invoke the united left. If only you had informed Rudd and Gillard about the united left, there would be a ETS, SPT, Alcopop, etc]
Erm, this is bollocks.
george
A boat was intercepted today, and has been directed to Christmas Island. Is Tony worried about this boat today? Or does he only worry when getting votes?
[I wouldn’t accept this if I was in Boothby.]
I’m in Boothby and while I’m not happy about it, I can’t see what the alternative is. It doesn’t change who won so a by-election is out of the question.
Given that, I can’t see what else is to be done.
[Rudd and Gillard spend a whole 3 years in parliament, trying to pass legislations with X and Fieldings, when all they had to do is invoke the united left. If only you had informed Rudd and Gillard about the united left, there would be a ETS, SPT, Alcopop, etc]
Even for you dovif, that’s a very silly post.
[Necessity is the mother of all inventions.]
Yes, but of course if we had PR, we wouldn’t have a nice three-party system for long. Soon we’d have a 17-party system and we’d have election outcomes like the Netherlands – election on 9 June, still no government.
Boothby booth truth uncuth. Strewth!
Gaaaah my fingers are too cold to type – must … buy …. new … heater….
[A boat was intercepted today, and has been directed to Christmas Island. Is Tony worried about this boat today? Or does he only worry when getting votes?]
Oh noes! Those people will be taking advantage of our illegitimate caretaker government to sneak in under Tony’s radar and jump to the head of the queue for free houses and Ferraris.
Psepho
I am just making the point that how can you have a right wing party (ALP) in thee “United” Left
As I have said before, if Turnbull was leading the Liberals, they would be to the left of the ALP
[I’m in Boothby and while I’m not happy about it, I can’t see what the alternative is. It doesn’t change who won so a by-election is out of the question.]
How do you conclude that it doesn’t change who won?
Sorry Pseph — I’m sitting here in Sydney thinking how bloody warm it is! 😉
Punna
Lol! I am surprised that the media haven’t spun it that way themselves as yet!
Psepho 568
No it is the feeling that hell has frozen over, and Abbott is the new PM
NZ has had PR for a few elections now and the sky hasn’t fallen in. Sure there is a period between the election and the formation of Government, but that’s to be expected. And the two main parties still get 85% of the total vote.
Psephos
Even Melbourne is quite mild today!
[Why? The final result cannot be changed by that box of votes. What do you want the AEC to do?]
Call a by-election for the seat.
The decision effectively disenfranchises a large number of voters who cast votes. More importantly, only a serious breach in the electoral security could have allowed this to happen.
As “The Australian Ballot” (as it is internationally known) has had widespread OS adoption because of its security (including in elections under international supervision) that security must be defended.
If Heffernan is tjhe Devil, how warm is it where he is?
dovif
I must of missed the meme. When did Tone become PM?
William, what is the record for the most number of posts in one thread on PB?
The last thread had to come close.
Triton
Liberals is in front by 1400, if every vote in that booth went to the ALP, the ALP would have a 200 led, almost no chance o happening
[Poor tone, the boat telephone seemed like such a good idea at the time.]
The boat telephone had nothing to do with anything.
Australia has split into two (or maybe three) camps. Old and conservative, young and impatient (and also a third one – apathetic).
I heard may of the old and cosnervative camp on a long plane flight recently. They talked endlessly about the charades by JG- e.g. ‘the real Julia’. The biggest topic raised was the $100 million per day being borrowed. Talked endlessly about that. George Mega is right when he said the GFC hit oldies differently. It smashed their retirement share funds without recourse. The ALP did little to communicate to this group about how the GFC economic intervention prevented this situation getting worse.
Also on the plane were youngies. Talked about how Tony was a “muppet” and a “nutter”. How JG and KR stuffed up on climate change. Tony was the wrong guy to win this group but did a solid job in raising douts about the ALP’s conviction.
The Australian political landscape has changed. The next few years are so unpredictable.
The real danger is the rise of the anti-politician – tea-party style. I am comforted that these independents are talking policy.
Does anyone have any idea if and when the Indies will have a meeting with Quigley (NBNco CEO)
Boothby by-election. Winner takes all.
blue-green
These Oldies must still be doing ok if they have been travelling?
Whether it changes the outcome or not, the Boothby thing smacks of dishonesty somewhere along the line and brings the whole process there into disrepute.
Nobody’s vote should be rejected unless it is deliberately made invalid by that person.
Even donkey votes get counted, and the value of those is hardly credible (unless you’re number 1 on the ticket).
The fact that it is 100 votes or a 1000 isn’t relevant. Where is the line? If it can happen in one seat … or one booth … who’s to say if these things happen elsewhere?
Because we are still in caretaker mode, Canberra’s weather is stuck in winter and can’t be changed, and here in Qbn we get federal weather under a special agreement with NSW.
blue green what that points to is the dire need to correct the underlying idea – that despite all evidence to the contrary that the tories are better with money. I’m not sure you can fix that in older minds, but you can sure prevent it taking hold in the 20somethings.
Centrebet have re-opened the federal election market.
It seems to reflect the bi-polar mood of the nation. Labor is now $3.10 (out from $2.50) and coalition is $1.35 (in from $1.50).
[Psepho
I am just making the point that how can you have a right wing party (ALP) in thee “United” Left]
And I’m just making the point that you’re an idiot, but in the new political environment in which we find ourselves, I am being nice to everyone, even idiots, so I’ll say no more.
Off to DFO to buy new Chinese heater…
blue-green
what age bracket do you actually refer to when saying “oldies”?
[These Oldies must still be doing ok if they have been travelling?]
Perhaps before the GFC they travelled by Learjet.
[Liberals is in front by 1400, if every vote in that booth went to the ALP, the ALP would have a 200 led, almost no chance o happening]
“Almost no chance” is the key here. The court cannot make assumptions on probabilities. The AEC doesn’t. It doesn’t declare a seat until the number of remaining votes cannot change the result even if all those votes are for the second-placed candidate. Also, how do you get: -1400+3000 = 200?
Surely any challenge or decision in Boothby will wait until the count (such as it now is ) is completed.
Triton
The vote from the 3000 was 1600 Lib and 1400 ALP, so if you transfer 1600 lib vote to ALP, the led is viola 200
[Call a by-election for the seat.
The decision effectively disenfranchises a large number of voters who cast votes. More importantly, only a serious breach in the electoral security could have allowed this to happen. ]
Why hold a by-election when it did not affect the result? You lot need to stop grasping hysterically at straws.
[Also, how do you get: -1400+3000 = 200?]
He’s using the same accountants as the Liberals did for their costings….
[I’m in Boothby and while I’m not happy about it, I can’t see what the alternative is. It doesn’t change who won so a by-election is out of the question.]
Depends on whether they were tampered with. Plus how do we know that it has no bearing on the outcome?
triton@593
Can a by-election be called without a candidate requesting it?
If so, it might remove the “sore loser” factor and make the result a little closer.
Psepho is being nice by only calling people idiots …. now I know how the ALP works
Eventually, if you cannot get your disable kid into hospital, it is your own bloody fault, sell your house and get him in yourself ….. wait ….. they have already said that