Click here for full Aston by-election results updated live.
Sunday
7pm. More postal votes have been added, the later ones being weaker for the Liberals than the first, being only 1876-1839 to their advantage and leaving the Labor lead all but unchanged at 6342. The electronic assisted votes have also been added, of which there were a grand total of 22. That should leave us with about 4000 postals and a handful of provisionals, and there’s no reason to think either will change the size of Labor’s lead. I have now cleaned up the remaining bugs in my results, including the one that was preventing a swing on the preference flows from showing. Labor’s share has gone from 60% to 63.6%, reflecting the fact that the United Australia Party and One Nation were in the field last time. It may be noted that Pauline Hanson’s assertion that One Nation was sitting out the contest as a strategic move to harm Labor yielded no appreciable dividend.
11am. The first and biggest batch of postals have broken 3642-3065 to Liberal, and while this is a relatively modest swing of 1.0% to Labor, it only cuts the margin from 6466 to 6124.
Saturday
End of night. Election day and pre-poll booths ended up producing remarkably similar swings, at 6.3% and 6.5% on two-party preferred and barely less similar on the primary vote. We can seemingly still expect something approaching 20,000 postal votes, which will assuredly bite into the current margin of 6466, but not by nearly enough to overturn Labor’s remarkable win. The only other categories of outstanding vote are provisionals and electronic assisted votes, of which there will be barely more than a few hundred. It was a bit of a horror night for my election results page, partly because my system needs more work before it can handle two elections at the same time — work I haven’t had time to do over the past week. I’ve now patched it up to the extent that it’s more or less doing its job, providing booth results and swings neatly laid out in the table and on a map display you can view by clicking the link at the bottom of the page.
9.10pm. Three of the four pre-poll booths have reported their results in quick succession, and they have entirely dispelled the notion that the Liberals could hope for a late miracle.
8.40pm. All the ordinary booths have reported on both two-party and primary, which is pretty fast work. Presumably we’ll be getting big pre-poll results later in the evening. I notice that there aren’t raw two-candidate numbers on the AEC site, so perhaps it’s not just me. The “projections” shown on my results page are actually the raw results, and the zero swings shown for two-candidate preferred and preferences are fudges I’ve put in.
8.19pm. There are still a few issues with my display, notably the swings on the two-party preferred table, but after the insertion of a few fudges it’s mostly doing it’s job. So to finally comment on the actual numbers, what we have here is a grim night for the Liberal Party, who will need something extraordinary on pre-poll votes and postals to pull it out of the fire. It should be noted though that they just about did so in Wentworth after it was called for them quite early on the night, and that last week’s New South Wales election wasn’t as bad for them as it first appeared owing to a better dynamic for them on pre-polls.
8.11pm. I’ve finally ironed out the problem that was producing screwy primary vote swings and projections. Seemingly though there’s some other problem with the swings in the two-candidate preferred table.
7.32pm. It’s not a good night for my live results — bits of it are working but bits aren’t. Just use it for looking at booths results until I advise further.
7.15pm. My Boronia East two-party results aren’t adding up, but this was a booth where there appeared to be little swing on the primary vote.
7.11pm. The Wantirna South booth is now in, and it’s an intriguingly strong result for Labor, but there’s a 10% swing to Labor there, and the ABC TV coverage relates that Kos Samaras is hearing of consistent swings to Labor.
6.55pm. The first result is in from Rowville East, where both parties are up about 5% on the primary vote.
6pm. Polls have closed for the Aston by-election. Through the above link you will find live updated results, including full booth details in both tabular and map display 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 about 45 minutes or so.
@Evan … you said 52-48 earlier.
Which would be close to correct, 54-46 ain’t being pulled back, if it were to happen.
I may have to revise my prediction in light of the outcome.
Even if there are big swings to Labor on the polling day vote, in a by-election I wouldn’t be surprised if 30% or more of the vote is postal. They’d need a double digit lead tonight to hold
It’s looking pretty good for Labor so far not sure where the preferences are going to come from to get the Liberals in a winnable position unless there are some booths + postals to come in that buck the trend.
I think Antony Green said one third requested a postal ballot ?
lol this is a fucking disaster for dutton, even if they eek out a win
Forgive my caution, based on the NSW election results in certain seats, Labor need to have a decent lead at 11PM tonight to be certain of winning the seat, because the postals and pre polls will likely favour the Liberal candidate.
Long way to go on this, last Saturday night in NSW taught me not to count my chickens before they’re hatched, so to speak.
I see we’re in the coping stage – lol
I don’t know how it’s going to go – but looking for reasons for anxiety when the only negative outcome for Labor would be an underperformance – is a little melodramatic.
Labor up now by over 1100 votes on primaries. Tories will be worried
“I see we’re in the coping stage – lol”
Yes, there’s going to be a 50% swing to the Liberals in the postals, you know.
*sighs*
Labor up now by 1300 on Primaries
On primary votes so far, Labor up +9%, Liberals down -9%, whoa, that’s big.
Swings on 🙂
@Evan
Still exciting to see a swing to the red team even if the rusted on LNP seat and after the exorsism of Trudge and Morrison – puts the “always a swing against a Govt in a by-election” stuff in the bin
I love watching Sky News coverage with there coping mechanisms, my new favourite show.
We are going to stay calm LOL
I think we’ve seen enough of the numbers to conclude that this is not a good by-election result for the Liberals.
This vote is great news.
Game over.
I feel like the ABC computer wants to give it away but they’ve placed an override on it.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/elections/aston-by-election-2023
Williams thingamebob is confused – maybe the swing to Labor is to big?
Oh dear. Potato peeled?
mj says:
Saturday, April 1, 2023 at 7:30 pm
I think the two party vote is still too low to make a call.
Something seems to have gone splat with the projection (huge ind / Fusion vote, swings making no sense). Looks fairly good for Labor, though.
That’s actually a funny line Andy the r@t.
Pretty sure Catprog I’ve heard Antony Green previously say the computer will call it with 10%+ of the vote in, not that it’s always right.
The big question now is will the Spud turn up for Insiders in the morning?
BillBo has 11% swing to Labor
Stop the count!
Live Dutton Reaction
gees you know the libs are in trouble if they are already talking up postal votes
Tony Barry saying it’s mathematically impossible for the Liberals to win!
HMAS Coalition going down fast.
Oh I see, Dan Tehan, the Liberals have lost because Labor have run a negative campaign. Lol
The Liberal Party has an ugly baby.
Dan tehan looking worried.
Talking postals.
Hope or desperation?
Primary vote swings seem to be calculated against the 2PP from last time
EdiT: or numbers with preferences added – I can’t imagine Greens got 21% primary last time
watching Sky. I just feel for Peta Credlin. Hasn’t she suffered enough?
I’m feeling pretty happy with my prediction regardless of whether Labor gets over the line here or not. Always felt this was going to be a close one but the last week or two make me tip Labor by a hair. Hope I’ll get a nice payoff by going against the pseph groupthink that the Libs were favoured.
nath says:
Saturday, April 1, 2023 at 7:38 pm
watching Sky. I just feel for Peta Credlin. Hasn’t she suffered enough?
中华人民共和国
Nope
Sprocket_says:
Saturday, April 1, 2023 at 7:36 pm
“The Liberal Party has an ugly baby”
….is an ugly baby….
Seems humble pie is on the menu, or will it be excuse ice-cream
Why is it that the Coalition let Tudge go if they think, as Tehan suggested, that the government is in its honeymoon still?
We’re probably only a few mins away from a call.
Good line nath.
First Oppo by-election loss in a 100 yrs. Ouch!
Didn’t the Coalition learn from the disaster that was parachuting a candidate into Fowler?
Perhaps choosing the pug ugliest leader in living memory was not the smartest move?
And that’s before the Dutton policy vacuum was revealed.
With the Crown Jewels gone to the Teals, now the Boomers and Tradies in the ‘burbs are deserting.
There’s bound to be a classic long-face photo of Credlin from tonight’s coverage.
And she’s wearing a green dress, which is a provocative choice.
If Aston does go Labor you can then count the Liberal metro seats in Melbourne on 2 fingers.
BK says:
Saturday, April 1, 2023 at 7:42 pm
There’s bound to be a classic long-face photo of Credlin from tonight’s coverage.
______
She does have a little bit of a horse face but still not a bad sort, and certainly better than you can get 😛
Really intersting that LNP primary is down with no UAP or ON candidate to take votes off them.
That I was not expecting. If that holds this is a serious rejection.
It seems Labor have regained the suburban tradie vote from the Howard era.
What did I say? Lol
The issue determining this would be a) is there a swing away in Lib PV? b) how are they doing in preferences?
Then answers so far is – Yup! and not well.
The fact Labor is getting a solid PV swing so far is probably the biggest shock.