Comments on: Winners picked

By: Melbcity

Melbcity — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 18:16:41 +0000

If in doubt stick with the devil you know. Yes and the bracks Labor Government is not hated to the same extent as Jeff Kennett was, But the complacent vote and misguided “send them a message’ can cause unexpected tidal waves. However bthe pols arte showing a consolidaton of votes to the main four players with minor parties left witn little to quander over a 1/4 of a million voters have already voted althougn exact statitical figuears are unknown for some unknown reason… the things we dont know when we should know beacuse they don’t know when they should know.

By: bmwofoz

bmwofoz — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 16:58:30 +0000

If people vote the same as the last fed election, then the Liberals would win, Prahran while not a true bellweather, tends to go toward the party in Government.

By: Melb city

Melb city — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 13:07:15 +0000

Let me assure you I fully understand the gay vote in Prahran. It is not as high and one-sided as you think. O’Reily never had in in him, he did not campaign string enough and was of the belief that he was going to be handed it on a plate. I picked his loss well before the election. I do not know where you get the idea that Prahran is traditionally Labor, far from it. It is the litmus inner-city seat. It became a strong liberal held set following the redistribution that saw Prahran taken out of the Melbourne Province and the Yarra River again a boundary for division. This seat will worth watching and it will be close. I agree Eltham is also another seat that might change above the normal statewide swing. Watch closer the regional centers (ballarat. bendigo morwell and rippon)

By: Melbcity

Melbcity — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 12:50:31 +0000

Reports coming from the VEC indicate that they have already undertaken analysis of results form e-Voting Centers which in itself raises a number of serious issues related to the probity, security and public scrutiny of e-Voting. When questioned about the analysis the VEC went quite. More on my blog. Lost in e-Space.

By: Melbcity

Melbcity — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 12:47:08 +0000

APPLICATIONS FOR POSTAL VOTING CLOSED LAST NIGHT (THURSDAY) AND PRE-POLLING TONIGHT.

The table below is the latest information on Postal votes provided by the VEC.

What’s missing, again, is that the number of postal votes that have been issued.

The VEC reports a vague figure of over 200,000 votes issued but for some unknown reason is unable to provide a detailed breakdown figure on each District. Which is surprising as you would have thought that all postal voting applications would have been checked off the electronic voters list before being sent out and as such statistics on the number of postal; votes should be readily available.

The VEC has spent millions of dollars on IT support and this important information cannot be relied on. I understand that postal returns are still being processed (even then they are electronically bar-coded) but the number of postal votes issued should have been available. We had trued to request this information daily but without success. This information should be on the VEC’s web site

More information on my web site. Click my name above

By: Lev Lafayette

Lev Lafayette — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 12:40:51 +0000

Also in response to Robert Merkel, it appears that the Greens are running a split ticket here. So theyâ€™re not preferencing the libs/nats ahead of labor.

A split ticked means that 50% of the preferences go to the Tories and the Country Gentry. So they are.

By: Dinesh Mathew

Dinesh Mathew — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 12:19:51 +0000

yes vec website is down. not happy!

By: jeza

jeza — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 12:11:31 +0000

Whoops, forgot to close the link tag there. Also here=Benambra.

By: jeza

jeza — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:55:35 +0000

I don’t see how a federal issue would really have that much of an effect on the Green vote at a state election. People, especially the highly educated types in the inner city, know the difference between state and federal issues and vote accordingly.

Also in response to Robert Merkel, it appears that the Greens are running a split ticket here. So they’re not preferencing the libs/nats ahead of labor.

P.S. the VEC website appears to be down on the eve of an election

By: Blair

Blair — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:07:46 +0000

I’m finding myself in furious agreement with Peter, except that I think the Liberals will win all three of Kilsyth, Mount Waverley and Ferntree Gully. I don’t see any reason why any of the next bracket of seats, except for South Barwon, would swing significantly more than the state average, which means they only really come into play if the 2PP is somewhere around Morgan’s 53% (and not Galaxy and Newspoll’s 55).

If the Greens statewide vote of 12% is accurate, one presumes on past House/Senate experience that their Upper House vote will be higher still, in which case we may be underestimating their performance there – they aren’t getting many preferences, but if they average (say) 15% in the Upper House across metropolitan Melbourne they won’t need many.

Whilst I think there will be a substantial swing to the Greens over the state as a whole, I expect it to be less in the inner city than elsewhere – mainly because in 2002 the (federal) refugee issue was still pretty potent as a factor in driving inner-city voters across from Labor to the Greens, and that’s less of a factor this time. I still expect the Greens to win Melbourne, but not the other three ALP-Greens seats. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see them top 20% in Kew, Hawthorn and Prahran, but all of these seats are too marginal for a low 20s primary to give them a chance of second place (in general seats on 10-15% margins have the most potential for independents and minor parties – closer and it’s too hard to get into second, safer and the lead candidate wins on primaries).

(BTW, my experience is that about 20% of Liberal voters preference Labor above the Greens).