A grim night for the Liberals in South Australia, who needing six seats to win have only clearly won two from Labor (Bright and Hartley) and one from an independent (Mount Gambier), and will require sharp late-count reversals to add any more than Mitchell to that list. Labor can yet get to a majority if they can hold on to Mitchell, but the most likely result seems to be a hung parliament with the two returned independents, Geoff Brock in Frome and Bob Such in Fisher, deciding the issue. Another loser of the evening is “electoral fairness”, with the Liberals weak showing coming despite what looks like a win of about 52.5-47.5 on two-party preferred. I’ll have a lot more to say about this of course, but not right now.
Perhaps I am being too much of a conspiracy theorist but does anyone think there is anything to the fact that the three Liberal candidates who all look like pinching seats off Labor are all male? Meanwhile two seats that I was sure the Liberals would win, Ashford and Elder,both had female candidates and swung against them. I would like to think it is merely conincidence but it does seem a little odd the way the seats all swung and the fact that Liberal women have so much trouble getting in to parliament.
296/ Yes I can’t understand why the Liberals didn’t make a bigger fuss at the time. Incompetence? Overconfidence?
Peterk
No, legal advice saying that there was no chance of success.
William did an excellent job, especially considering one rogue AEC seat count.
Very refreshing after poor Dean Jaensch’s difficulties last time.
There is a case to be made, however, to just relay data from John Rau’s phone next time.
Swing Required
[There is a case to be made, however, to just relay data from John Rau’s phone next time.]
Rau was very good. He’d make a good leader if Jay doesn’t get back in.
The Libs on ABC didn’t seem to have much idea what was going on.
By the way, congratulations William. Finally getting the recognition you more than deserve!
Maybe this is why SA voters were lukewarm about Marshall.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Marshall_(murderer)
I am wondering with William now a certified television celebrity, should he replace the silhouette image of himself on this website with a real photo?
Or perhaps go straight to caricature?
Peterk at 258:
[ 3. Split up Morphett (this could be harder) Its certainly an anomally though to have such a blue seat surounded on all sides by marginals. ]
Probably because Glenelg is where you live if you want to live near the beach, but not next to the airport, oil refinery or harbour, and relatively close to Adelaide CBD, so it’s attractive to cashed-up Lib-voting types. The anomaly comes from the city’s geography.
The South Australian constitution needs to be amended so that a message about the incompetence of the S.A. Liberal Party is included at the top of every ballot paper.
Do the SA ballots still have that thing saying you can leave your ballot blank if you want? I forgot to actually check when I voted.
Focus on the 2PP vote is of some interst with a 2 major party system but it gets into a fix when there are 3 or more significant parties involved.
Take the days when the Country Party would align either with Liberals or Labor in Victoria some years ago and more recently in SA.
Canada with Liberals, Conservatives, NDP and PQ.
CM – the ballot papers don’t encourage anything except standard voting. Electoral officers should answer questions correctly if asked.
Did anyone tape the complete coverage? I am desperate for a copy. I’ve been archiving for many years and my recorder did not record and I forgot to ask my back to record it!
Just checked the EasyVote Guide Sample on the ECSA website, the fake ballot illustration has it, so it appears they still do.
If Kris Hanna in Mitchell is any guide, then split tickets really ‘work’, ie a sufficiently large proportion of your voters blindly follow as you tell them to pref in opposite directions from each other, that it really does wind up v close to 50/50.
I don’t have access to actual pref flows, so for simplicity let’s add FF to Libs and Green to ALP. That makes it 41.1 Lib to 40.3 ALP at the point where Kris Hanna is eliminated. For the Lib to win from there, with an ex-ALP, ex-Green with a big 18.7% to hand around doling out the preferences, seems extraordinary.
And yet applying the same calculation to 2010, it was notionally 39 ALP to 33 Lib when Hanna was eliminated—and yet the final result was just 52:48, ie Hanna voters might somehow have given more than 50% of their prefs to the Libs.
It seems like split tickets might be a Claytons OPV option, ie whoever’s in front after first prefs will almost always win.
William, you did a great job on Saturday night, in a quiet, methodical way.
Perhaps a new career beckons?
SimonH – the electors have to make up their own mind. Independents get votes from across the political spectrum. If they have a HTV card suggesting a preference to a major party that immediately reduces their chances of building up their own vote. Its nothing to do woth OPV.