By popular demand, I hereby open a new thread for discussion of the extraordinarily tight three-way race in the Victorian upper house region of Southern Metropolitan. Earlier expectations that the final seat would come down to a race between Labor’s Evan Thornley and the Greens’ Sue Pennicuik have been undone by an unexpectedly strong performance by the Liberals on postals, which has strengthened the hand of their third candidate David Southwick. Remarkably, the current result in quota terms is 3.00 for the Liberals, 1.99 for Labor and 1.00 for the Greens, making it a near-perfect three-way tie in the race for the final seat. The Greens have suffered the worst in late counting, such that the possibility has emerged of the Liberals winning the seat with a tiny surplus that helps elect Thornley, who will receive it as preferences ahead of the Greens’ Sue Pennicuik. The irony of Liberal preferences delivering Labor an upper house majority is being widely remarked upon, though their decision to put the Greens last always meant it was a serious possibility. Antony Green explains in comments that this is a rare occasion where below-the-line votes will prove decisive, so that "the models where you treat below-the-line votes as ticket votes" – such as the calculators at Upperhouse.info – "are too crude in such a close count":
What you need to do now is break the count into above and below the line votes. Add the tickets of Family First and the DLP to the Liberal vote. Add the Democrat ticket to the Greens, and People Power and Group C tickets to Labor’s vote. At this point, none of these three totals reaches a full quota, though the Greens are the closest. The balance is determined by the below the line votes. Unless the relative percentage of Labor, Liberal or Green increases against the other, none of these totals will reach a quota. The real unknown is what happens if enough BTL votes drift to the Greens. If this happens, then the Democrat ticket will elect the Green, and release a small number of ticket preferences for Labor … What Labor needs to win the last spot is for as many BTL votes to drift to the Greens before the Democrat ticket is distributed. Unless the relative %’s of the party change again, on the current count Labor will need a surplus from the Greens to win the last spot.
252 Comments
Besides the three-way tie in southern metro – are all others pretty much assumed? So that the DLP isnt in and Labors fourth candidate is in WV?
On other matters, I sure hope Rudd wins. Perhaps Beazley and Rudd should do a swap, something like the New Zealand National Party did last week [no.2 and no.3 swapped spots which gave a whole new fresh looking leadership team]. Perhaps ALP should learn from the NZNP in that respect. Otherwise, I agree to the comments of the former thread, goodbye ALP Federally 2007. [Unless there is of course another Joh for Canberra campaign which won't happen - or that National and Liberal relations sour by then. Perhaps the ALP can play the McGuran {cant spell} defection and recent break and unbreaks in state conservative coalitions.]
You seriously think Rudd is a better option than Beazley????
Yes. Look anyone is a bertter opetion than Beazley, dont you agree? Noone likes Beazley and everyone thinks he performs badly. Theres no reson to keep him in. He has experience ONLY at LOSING.
Sorry to toot my own horn, but I was the first person on here to predict 1-3-1 in Southern Metro.
Howard C Says:
November 21st, 2006 at 9:14 am
The Liberals aren’t going to fall under 14 LC seats, or 2 per region on average. While they will only win one seat in Northern Metro and probably only one in Western Metro, they will win 3 seats in Western Victoria & Eastern Metro. Possibly also Southern Metro.
The Greens will go forward in Southern Metro, but at the expense of the ALP. Don’t be surprised to see a LIB 3 ALP 1 GRN 1 result in Southern Metro, with Evan Thornley left standing when the music stops.
That is what I wrote 10 days ago, and chances are I’ll end up being correct.
I don’t want to be too confident, but I suspect that Sue Pennicuik will win the 4th spot and have enough preferences left over to get Thornley up unless Southwick has a fair lead on him.
My reasoning for this is as follows: The Greens almost always do badly on postal votes but well on absentees (very different demographics). Sometimes we do well on prepolls, sometimes badly.
So far the lower house votes counted have pretty much followed this regard, with the prepolls more often bad than good. The votes entered in the last few days for the upper house would have been mostly or entirely postals and prepolls, so we’ve gone backwards. However, as they start putting in the upper house absentees things should get better.
On top of this, our scrutineers have been reporting remarkably positive below the line flow to us. In fact their flows are so positive I can’t actually believe them, but if we’re doing even close to as well as they say we will get the 4th spot on absentees and below the lines with a fair bit to flow on to Thornley.
have any more actual VEC figures been released this arvo?
While we wait and wait, does anybody have time to explain to me why it takes so long for the absentee votes to “come in” please?
Of course Rudd is Marcus he looks like a young Howard, goes to church and speaks Chinese(soon our biggest trading partner).
He’ll either win or soften the ground making way for Bill Shorten.
Come on Thornley do something send a virus through that eats up liberal votes and gets Sue in too (at least she’s better looking than Southdick)
My analysis of the result in Southern Melbourne is as follow
If we add the ATL vote for
a. Liberal + FF + DLP + Liberal BTL
b. Green + Democrat + Green BTL
c. Labor + PP + Group C + Labor BTL
we get
a. .13% below a 3rd quota
b. .21% below a 3rd quota
c. 2.17% below a 3rd quota
this means that Labor have the most to lose if the BTL preference exhausts, it seem that if only 20% of BTL exhausts liberal get 4th and Green get 5th. I think Labor is facing an uphill battle, which is what both the Liberal and Green scutaneers want as well.
Don’t you guys think Rudd comes across as too much of a pompous ass to actually win over middle Australia?
has anyone got todays VEC numbers for SM?
I remember a joke that did the rounds circa 2001 about Rudd’s leadership aspirations. It went something like; Rudd may one day be a leader, but it wont be of the A.L.P. But Rudd has consistently improved since 2001, and although some say he attends church, I’m sure its a methodist one. Rudd stayed pure during the disgrace of Tampa, which Beazley stupidly supported. Let’s face it, both front benches are full of time servers, crocodiles and assorted nasties. Of them all Rudd seems the most capable of genuine leadership.
Politics Obsessed,
It’s difficult to conceive a situation where Labor won’t win the final seat in Western Victoria. There’s 87% counted, and they have a minimum advantage of 1,700 votes over the Greens, whose preferences then give the ALP candidate Elaine Carbines a quota by at least 2,000 votes.
The DLP even if there is no leakage from their harvest (the BTL votes from PP, CA, FF, Libs and Nats), will be in excess of 3,000 votes.
So that’s a cast iron 3 ALP 2 Liberal.
In Southern Metro it is possible to mount a case for any combination of Southwick, Pennicuik and Thornley for the 4th and 5th seats. Thornley is least likely to win the 4th, and his chance of snatching the last seat requires either Southwick or Pennicuik (but not both) to finish with a significant surplus. Surpluses from either of these two will favour Thornley against either Liberal or Green, if they are short of a quota.
My guess is that the odds are slightly against ET right now, but (astonishingly) the count is only 77% complete, as reported on the VEC website, which leaves plenty of scope for anything to happen.
Perhaps the count is more advanced than the VEC input of results, which might enable a firming up of this prediction.
Latest data form southern metro is up on the VEC site and my countsheet is also up todate as of 17:00 today…
http://melbcity.topcities.com
SOUTHERN METRO: As of 5:00PM today Thronley has taken the lead over Southwick. It is a neck and neck race to the finish better then the best Melbourne to Hobart Yacht races. Some people like to read about the result at the end of the journey but it much better to watch the race in progress. I have updates the Southern Metro count sheet. Any errors please report to my blog.
http://melbcity.topcities.com
I think the Greens could lose out. Southern Metro could go 3 LIB 2 ALP..
or 2 ALP 2 Lib 1 Grn
or as you say 3 LIB 1 ALP 1 GRN but I think the lats option is looking less likely as time moves on. 74.61% and in theory another 10% to hit the table. Its a close finish down along the bay-side. And the spinnakers are just begging to fly
At the crucial conjunction point..
GRN 46863
ALP 46814
LIB 41714
FF 9696
DEM 9197
People Power had just been eliminated and they top up the democrats who are marginally below FF.
The Demarcats flows to the Greens who on DEM first Preferences cross the line with minimal surplus. (This is the segmentation order at play) The Democracies still have another 4,387 votes that came to it as second preferences + their below the line volts to their lower candidates.
The Green Surplus (256) is then distributed to the ALP
The Democratic remaining votes are then distributed to the ALP pushing Thornley over a head of Southwick. with a margin of less then 20 votes.
You begin to see how close this race is. Those 20 could easily disappear in the exaughsted pile or drift from the below the line voters. The Democrats and People Power preferences are keeping the Greens in the race but labor and the Liberals are catching up.
http://melbcity.topcities.com
http://melbournecitycouncil.blogspot.com
VEC web site still reporting a large number of polling places not counted. All poling places for the lower house were in on the night. I think something is wrong here. Maybe this page is not being updated anymore it has not changed since Saturday.
http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/state2006resultbyelectorateUH.html
As I keep saying, the missing polling places are E-Centres, many of which will have zero or very few votes.
Hey Anthony Van Der Craats at Melb City, Please stop being so pointlessly obsessive about the number of polling booths and have a look at the actual booths listed for each Assembly seat.
All of the actual polling booths in each region have reported. There are a number of state wide booths – Melb Town Hall, Melb Airport, Kooyong Vision Centre, Warragul Vision centre etc – and each time even 1 person in an assembly district votes there it is recorded as a booth for both that district and the region. So, in most cases there are 11 Melbourne Airport booths listed as not reporting for each region.
The numbers of votes at each of these “booths” is both small and incorporated in the Absentee figures.
Can someone explain something please. There are 38583 votes counted in Fertree Gully 94.12% of the total enrolment and they are doing a re-check. Does this mean they have finished counting and almost 2500 people in the electorate didn’t turn up to vote? How does one know when they have finished counting. The ALP member is 38 votes ahead.
In Mount Waverley they have counted 34327 votes 93.78% of the total enrolment and the ALP member is ahead by 234 votes. Have they finished counting there?
What percentage of people in an electorate don’t turn up to vote? How does one know when they have finished counting.
Thanks
John
1st recheck is a matter of course. they need to tally all the votes with what is recorded in their documenation. I have not checked the results so I do not know how close it is. at over 90% of the enrollment I would think it may have completed but they need to wait until Monday for any late postal arrivals. Unfortuneatly teh VEc refused to provide any statistics on the exact number of postal ballots issued prior to Saturdays elections. Postal vote applications closed over a week ago. For all I know they could still be printing ballots.
Without teh detailed information we are keopt in the dark. E-Centers have been in long ago and all polling places are recored for the lowerhouse. Whty would they be recorded for one and not got around to recording teh upperhouse? e-Centres are electronic data. The VEC even counted the results before Saturdays poll (Investigation still continuing)… or are they holdng back on reporting that data until the data-entry oprocess continues. Will the VEC be naking thisn information available to scruniteers. IN my views they should have provided scutineeers a copy of the data when the poll closed and when they acess teh data for the first time. There are a number of issues about the e-voiting system that seriously need review. How secre is the data and why was it accessed before the close of poll on saturday and what processes are in place to ensure proiper scrutiny of the data. Why has the detailed prefernce data noit been made available by now (Should have been available on Saturday)…
If they have zero votes then they are very easy to count.
Yes, but someone has to go through and mark them all as in. Don’t ask me why they haven’t done it. But the VEC told me the gap in the booth numbers is the E-Centres, and the number of upper house booths counted equals the number of fixed booths in the state. There were slightly over 600 E-booth records created.
I arranged for someone at ABC on-line to stay back tonight and publish my XMLs of the LC vote count. They are at http://www.abc.net.au/elections/vic/2006/results/
Thornley wins this time, but who wins when it is this close becomes a lottery using the assume all BTL’s are ticket votes method. If you break it down between ticket and BTL votes, none of the parties reaches the next quota on ticket votes. Based on the three party group totals plus minor party preference tickets, Greens are around 580 votes short, Liberal 1,200 short and Labor 2,680 short, with about 4,400 BTL votes to decide the issue. There were 1,661 BTL votes for Stephen Mayne, which when you split the count up between ticket and BTL votes, is the main (Mayne?)reason Labor slips behind.
Of course, it is very close, so even a slight shift in the relative % votes for Liberal, Labor and Greens will alter each party’s relative chances of election.
Before someone says I make an error in the distribution of the Green surplus, the calculation is correct but the method is wrong. It doesn’t affect the result. I’ll fix that when I re-write the software next year.
Thanks to those that reported my links on my front page were not working. I have corrected the links and am downloading the latest count sheets for all upper-house regions as of results reported at 5:00PM today Should be up and running in 5-10 mins. (slow uplink)
http://melbcity.topcities.com
Does anyone know why I could be having a problem in bring up teh upperhouse.info pages. It happens quite often if I do a post and try to load the site a second time it blanks out and I have to open a new internet session window.. “The Speaker” I think it has to do with your web provider or web site settings…
Antony G are you segmenting the BTL votes?
No and it doesn’t matter. With the Labor and Liberal tickets, more than 99% will be at the reduced value passed from the top of the ticket, and more than 99% of any Green surplus will be of full value votes.
That data-entry data quaility error in the DLP goup name in Western Victoria is still there the VEc has not corrected it. I a pain in the system as I have to manually correct it every time I do a down load.
Why don’t you just fix the name in your spreadsheet? You’re the only person who has a problem with it.
Yes it does…
BTL the kline vioets become secondary primaries and when they are eliminated a second time secdondary primaries are lumped together it effects the surplus and the direction of votes such as the Democrats. The all depends on when tthey cross teh lione and are excluded. I am seeing this clearly in Southern Metro. Thats why I adopted the notional ticket analysis to at least group the segmenation in some order similar to what will be the data-flow at the time they press the button.
The probloem is in the VEc data not my spreedsheet. Once I make the manual correction of the VEC data it is ok
My count sheets have downloaded. If you look at the columns of the count you will see the segmenation at work around the time the Greens are elected. My column heading could be better and explain more such as where they came from but if you look close you can see what is happening. Because the Greens are elected on teh Democrat Ticket primary vote which is distributed first. Secondary primaries that come to the Democrats go out at full value if they all pass through the Greens in one transaction they would lose value. This becomes very important when the BTL vote is properly recorded.
MelbCity,
My guess (based on UpperHouse’s statement last Saturday)is that he chose the cheapest and crappiest (paraphrased but true to the spirit of his words, iirc) and he warned his readers that the site would probably overload on Saturday night. Given the exciting count, he’s probably having bandwith problems.
I don’t know the state of the upper house count in different places, but I scrutineered an Assembly seat, where after the Saturday night count was complete, they did pre-polls, mobile polling booths and early-submitted postals on Sunday and Monday. They seemed to me to p***f**t around Monday and Tuesday, doing clerical checks of various sorts. Wednesday was a full recheck of the booth count from Saturday (without reviewing the 2pp estimates); Thursday they did the absentees, which implies that prior to that they had to wait for the absent votes to arrive, check that the voters were duly enrolled, and were not recorded as otherwise having voted. Meanwhile postals are still dribbling in and are checked and counted.
I have the sense that returning officers show varying degrees of diligence in updating the VEC website, which I would have thought should be a priority. Several close Assembly seats haven’t movedtheir recorded vote from Sunday or Monday, when clearly some counting has been occurring.
John, 94% is probably about a normal full vote. Antony G. would have ready access to the stats.
The gap is explained by enrolled voters who don’t bother, forget, are travelling and don’t make the effort to vote pre-poll, or submit an absent vote, are standing in the queue at Melbourne Town Hall, and won’t wait. Others are ill, dealing with bereavement, working all day and nowhere near a booth, and there’s always the odd error on the roll – recent deaths, or house shift after the closing of the rolls etc.
Evan will miss out – Trust me.
Would like to see him win but he won’t bring home the bacon.
Green vote will increase because those who vote BTL for the minor parties are more likely to vote minor parties before the majors, particularly the greens.
Liberal vote will increase due to the late counting which always favours the libs.
Evan is only close (but still misses out!) when ALL of Steve Mayne’s votes go through to evan. I reckon a 45-25-15-10 split is more likely (Green-Lab-Lib-Exhausted). This will allow extra dem ATL votes to go through to the greens and hence Evan, BUT, even a 20% leakage from Steven will ensure the libs are over quota, and when Greens get over quota, it’s game over.
Also, the Christian parties BTL votes will probably go strongly to the Libs (15-25-40-20) Sure this will help as Evan get lib preferences as lib ticket votes spill over, but the greens will also be over due to Dem ATL & BTL and PP BTL.
I have produced more accurate and more correct results than Anthony vdC(Approaching Antony’s level… slowly…) and this will happen. Bracks will unfortunately need to name a new Parly Secrty.
Sorry Evan…
UHE
No it doesn’t. When the Democrats go out, the number of reduced value votes they have will be tiny. There were a total of 2,465 Liberal BTL votes reduced in value, and 2,700 Labor BTL votes at reduced value. We know from past research that more than 90% of these votes will stay in the Liberal and Labor tickets, so at most 500 ballots will be involved, and these will al be at a reduced value anyway, and the only ones that will count are those that have ended up with the Democrats. The numbers are tiny. You just treat them as more BTL votes. The ticket votes, which in this count are the important ones, will all be at full value, as will all the BTL votes from other sources, and these will all be distributed before the reduced value votes. It just isn’t worth factoring into the equation. It may end up being important, but at this point, the remaining votes to be counted and the full value BTL votes are far more important than trying to deal with a tiny number of reduced value BTL votes as well.
Normal turnout would be 91-94%. The turnout in inner-city seats can often fall slightly below 90%. Turnout at state elections is sometimes 2-3% less than for Federal elections, partly because of the relative importance voters place in the different levels of government, but also due to the AEC putting most effort into roll cleanses in the 12 months before Federal election. Intervening state elections can have rolls that haven’t been purged as thoroughly.
Thinking back on the election night which of the guest commentators do you think was the best and on top of the trends and who called it correctly? I was listening to the Radio so I did not have the benefit of watching TV. and with Robert Ray not on the list it opened up the field a bit. (Robert was without a doubt one of the best election night commentators).
I thought Bill Shorten did well calling the seats that came in early during the short period he took the ABC microphone. What are your thoughts and who would you vote for being the best guest commentator. Antony Green is out as he was not a staffer and not a guest. I am very interested in the feedback.
William and you choice goes to??
if your lumping People Power into the Democrats they become secondary primaries along with any other primary votes that do not belong to teh lead candidate. Depending on the stage of the count and who crosses the line when these votes wilol become crucial as they maintain their value at a higher rate then if they were merged into the general surplus of the greens. They can contribute a significant value to the overall count. Some votes icrease in value and other decrease depending at what stage they are merged with the surplus and then distibuted on elimination. Its one of those quirky things that I take issue with the system as it distorts the one vote one value principle.
I analysis a City of Melbourne vote once looking at both systems and changed the segmenation and I got a differnet result… Mind you coucnil votes were less deciplines but it made a significant diffenerence. If the vote remains tight then yes it will certainly come into play.
Re: the ‘entrenching’ mentioned in the first thread – you shouldn’t lock things in place – imagine the White Australia Policy etc ‘entrenched’ in our federal constitution!
I do not use a spreedsheet I have a database. It is geared up to count the BTL votes from a sample records .The spreedsheet is just my report.
Cheers Peter Fuller. I missed all the results when the tide switched from WV to metro and the Canberra issues. Speaking of which – anyone know what happened to the possible leadership challenge in the NT? Did it go ahead or not? I admit I keep coming back here everyday just to see if Thornley made it or not. Whoever said just waiting for the final results was fun; they have been missing out on the joy of speculation.
Just out of random interest… if Labor had a majority again, would they make the Upperhouse unable to block supply?
I just went through the Victorian Act, and like all the states, it has subtle differences. You’re right that the Democrat ticket preferences would go first before the People Power tickets. But this has no impact on the Green surplus as the People Power votes go straight to Labor. The important point is how many BTL votes go to the Greens BEFORE the democrat goes out. The more BTL’s flow to the Greens, the bigger the Green surplus. But you can effectively treat them all as a block as they nearly all flow the same way.
Melb City/Peter Fuller:
Yes my host is terrible – but cheap. When you see a white page, just hang around for a couple of minutes, it’ll be back up.
Happy election prognostications everyone. I’m off to bed and away to a beach for the weekend. For more important than worrying about South metropolitan region.
Well deserved Antony Green – you need all the rest you can – 2006 was a big year – and 2007 is shaping up to be a big one too [election wise]
Antony Green Says: I just went through the Victorian Act, and like all the states, it has subtle differences.
My reading of the Act was that the method was essentially that of the Senate, without the provisions for bulk exclusions. There didn’t seem to be anything as explicit as in the Senate Scrutiny cocerning when to stop allocating votes to a candidate who becomes elected during an exclusion: whether one stops at the current parcel or lets the current transfer continue. I assume the latter. There could have been, but there apparently isn’t, a provision for postponing a distribution of a surplus.
I haven’t entered into the debate for a while but here is my six penneth worth. I agree with Anthony Green about the order the three candidates who will finish in the last two to be elected.
My calculations are that the Green in SM is 1587 under a quota, the third Lib (Southwick) is 1832 under a quota, and the second ALP 3533 under a quota. I think the Green Pennicuik is likely to be elected to the fourth spot unless she gets very few btl votes (which I haven’t counted, other than btl for Pennicuik the first three Libs and the first two ALP). My calculation is that the notional quota is 51468. On the figures displayed tonight I think it will be very difficult for Thornley to get over the line, but not impossible, in the absence of knowledge about most btl votes. Only late votes running towards the ALP atl, Bentley atl, and Mayne atl can save Thornley missing out.
It is possible the last candidate could be elected with less than a quota, but unlikely, as this would require a majority of btl votes to exhaust.
Melb city asked for comments on the election live media coverage. I listened to ABC News Radio and followed the VEC results online. I thought it was the poorest election coverage I’ve heard or read from anywhere in 10 years.
The calling of Caulfield for Family First (based on dodgy VEC figures admittedly) was a great clanger.
Jon Faine kept saying “good morning” and laughing about it.
There was too much hype about the Green vote in the lower house, which remained static anyway, and little analysis of regional peculiarities like Morwell, South West Coast and Gembrook.
As for the upper house, well this post says it all.
I agree. There was far too much waffle and not enough telling us who was polling what where. For those of us who were stuck in polling booths scruntineering, the ABC was the only to know what was going on, and bloody Jon Faine kept giving us his opinions and no facts. It was very annoying. The over-hyping of the Greens was a problem across all the media.
Good call Michael. What did you think of Bill Shortens (Short) presentation. I thought he was good, sharp and too the point.
Re order of preferences. The Act stats clearly votes in an exclusion are distributed the following order.
1) Primary votes for the lead candidate
2) Aggregated secondary primary votes at full value received from any candidate as they all have the same value
3) All other votes aggregated in descending order of value.
It is point 2 above that I strongly disagree with under the current rules. If you are going to have segmentation then every candidates secondary primary vote should be a separate transaction based on the order in which they were received and not lumped together with every other secondary primary vote. At first it makes little to no difference but towards the end it makes a huge difference (over 100 votes or more in value depending where and when the surplus occurs and if its in this aggregated secondary primary distribution, YES it is a big distortion)
With computer based technology there is not reason to justify segmentation. It was designed to off-set the impact of the paper- based surplus formula which was used to simplify the manual counting process.
With computers and the adoption of a value based surplus calculation we could treat each candidate as one single transaction and then calculate any surplus. One transaction per candidate. Remainders could stay with the candidates and their is no needs to maintain a Integer based count. Then the speakers calculator will be more accurate.
IF we must adopt segmentation the FIFO (First In First out) should be the what is required. I would not go so far as to recommend the Meeks system but it would be preferable to the current secondary aggregated primary distribution. (It does not matter if no one is elected on this distribution but it does if they are) Technical but I am sure there are those out there that understand what I am talking about.
The calculation of a candidates surplus on the value of the vote as opposed to the the number of papers MUST also be changed as it favours major parties ticket votes whose value is increased at the expense of the supplementary below the line votes. The principle of a paper based calculation is wrong and in close election such as Western Victoria it does and will make a difference.
I am told that only a hand full of votes exhaust and no where near as much as 20% as suggested. More like 1% of the BTL I think. But that can make a difference in a very very close election as we are witnessing here. History in the making. (Thank god and the ALP we do not have random sampling in Victoria)
Putting aside the issues of poilitics its an exciting race but lack the detail. I am all for online real time counting statistics. Much more could be done to make the process much open and transparent and accountable
The befallen Demo gods did not hand out a split ticket this time. Any Idea why? How many of the Democrats BTL vote will split and flow to the Liberal Party or the ALP before the Greens. Same for PP and all the other minor parties BTL votes.
Again look at my count sheet. http://melbcity.topcities.com (note no www.)
Yes percentages are count but percentages are calculated from the numbers and we are already beyond the single decimal place percentage and well into two decimal and maybe even the third decimal place. (But then we have an integer based system also. The is a significant remainder issue when its this close.
Lyle: As of last night the quota was 5149. I am sure you should be able to read my count sheet. Knowing full well you experience and interest in PR overall. The ALP is use to dealing with proportional counts as it uses PR in its internal voting system. John Lenders in particular is a killed PRist. Its the quirky rule issues that make it QUIRKY not the principle behind proportional representation. It most certainly is a good reflection of the electorate and in my view well suited to upper-houses.
Ahh I am not counting the indendent votes. Sorry Lyle your right. I might crate a three way split ticket for him… and brng it via the minor parties and the Democrats/PP.
John Myers, whoever he is, votes might be crucial in this election.
If there is a legal challenge related Southern Metropolitan and in all probibility it will most likely get to court with all parties challenging the results, I wonder how much the e-voting system will stand up to the legal scrutny with a clear indication that the VEC accessed the data files prior to the close of the ballot. Copies of the data have not been made available to scrutineers. I can see a lot if issues that are open for discussion. Even if Thornley or Southwick scapes across the line the litigation that will follow will delay Their appointment for some time. If I recall it goes first to the magistrates court then to VCAT (Or is that only the case in municipal elections) I could involve all three (or even four) of our state courts. Mr Tully will be baptised by fire over this one. I better start pulling my documents and emails together… This is going to be a long long wait. I am sure this site might even become embroiled in a possible legal bun fight.
Who is John Myers and where does his 245 votes go… do they reverse donkey vote or does he have a distinct support base and his vote is disciplined.
Has anyone noticed that in the most recent 1.26% of the vote released yesterday afternoon, the trend for the ALP’s lead over the Greens to be eroded, accelerated sharply? With several percent of the vote still to be counted, I put the ALP vote for the last seat to be 8.92%. The Greens vote, with Socalist Alliance prefrences at 8.60%. This represents a .22% improvement for the Greens in one sixth or so of the remaining votes. If the trend continues, won’t the Greens outpoll the ALP for the last seat?
Took a closer look at the ABC election analysis and it means nothing really. Antony you need to start producing BTL candidate data of some sort. I think it is faro to say that a vast majority of BTL will stay within the group of their first preference. Any vote for a lead candidate will get stepped up in the ATL ticket transfer as it is first preferences not tickets that are transferred. Te ticket is only a way of allocating a first preference to the lead candidate and preferences down the group and beyond. The ABC results model goes out the window when it is this close. a lot more what if’s need to be considered. Bary Myers vote is potentially crucial to the outcome and does not show up in any current analysis including mine. I am working on it. Hopefully backed up by scutineers information. This could a reversed dokey vote or a very small sectional interest group. Does it has a focued direction is the question.
I susspect that teh drift away from teh main players will have a greater effect then Myuers but again you need to start making some allowance for teh BTL votes in gerater detail then your current analysis.
I received campaign literature from Barry Myers the day after the poll, on a Sunday, as I now live in Southern Metropolitan Region. Obviously he paid someone to distribute and they did it late. Probably didn’t have much influence on his vote. The pamphlet was woeful. Mr Myers says he was narrowly defeated by a Labor candidate once for Kew Council. By a Labor candidate in Kew? No person in his or her right mind would admit to being an ALP member standing for the old Kew Council, and the same for a Liberal Party member in the old Northcote Council like Anglea Kotsiras, a good Councillor and lovely person, and the wife of Nick, Liberal MLA for Bulleen and a good bloke. Angela stood as an Independent, like ALP members with any brains now do in Boorondara, other than in the Ashburton area where Labor normally polls OK.
Mr Myers also tells us his religion, and that is not normally a good idea unless you are running in an area full of Mormons (if you are one, like in Utah. No disrespect intended to adherents of the LDS religion). The DLP was heavily populated with Catholics yet never claimed that it was. It had many non-Catholic members, like its leader Robert Joshua and Senator Jack Little. The old DLP would not have supported the privatisations of both major parties, and, although morally conservative and anti-Communist, it was in many ways socially progressive. Australians don’t like their political parties to have religious affiliations, by and large.
Mr Myers vote may be crucial, as Anthony you correctly point out. I suspect it will go all over the place. A certain number of voters vote at random. It is also possible he has a lot of friends, but friends don’t always vote the way they say they will vote and their preferences cannot be predicted. Only scrutineers can probably give us some idea. On election night I disappointed Evan Thornley’s campaign office at not being able to give them some idea of how btl preferences were going. My eyesight is failing and I needed new glasses (which I bought yesterday) and just wasn’t able to look at btl votes closely enough. I used to be able to do it in Council elections and could get it correct most of the time, but this one is much harder. Also my polling booth, which voted Liberal in the lower house, may not have been typical for the region which, while overly conservative, does have Labor pockets.
Living in Sydney, I was able to watch ABC TV’s election night coverage on the ABC2 Digital Channel. A very professional job from the ABC, as always, and I love the computer graphics/swingometer. Also, a good panel consisting of John Brumby and Robert Doyle.
I don’t think election night programs on radio work quite as effectively.
According to today’s Australian: the ALP is confident of retaining Mt Waverley and Gembrook, and for the first time, they’re ahead in Ferntree Gully. Nothing on the Upper House.
And, if you believed Michael Brissenden’s report on ABC TV’s Stateline last night, the numbers in the caucus favour a Rudd victory on Monday.
Has anyone noticed that in the most recent 1.26% of the vote released yesterday afternoon, the trend for the ALP’s lead over the Greens to be eroded, accelerated sharply? With several percent of the vote still to be counted, I put the ALP vote for the last seat to be 8.92%. The Greens vote, with Socalist Alliance preferences at 8.60%. This represents a .22% improvement for the Greens in one sixth or so of the remaining votes. If the trend continues, won’t the Greens outpoll the ALP for the last seat?
Lyle: I know you are a very good scrutineer, I am sorry to hear about your eyesight. We are all getting older. For the record Lyle was a strong supported and campaign for electoral reform. Lyle what booth were you scrutineering at?
I understand that if the result of the election is comes down to a few bundles there will most certainly be a legal challenge although it is possible that if Labor loses the Government might think it unwise to challenge the result as there would be a backlash against the government if fresh elections would be called. The cost of holding fresh elections would be considerable. There is also the unknown question as to weather all five vacancies would have to re-run. If Southwick is the loser then you can count on a legal challenge. All parties are bracing themselves and collecting data and information on various issues of concern related to the conduct of the election. Looks very much like we could be seeing another Nunawading in the making. Early days but its a possibility. Anyone with information on polling day problems and complaints about the VEC can leave comments on my blog. (Issues ralated to the e-voting system are already under question) Any comment marked confidential in the first line will not be published. Names and contacts protected.
While weait in suspension for mor information which in all probability will not come until next week. What are the issues and percentage of outcomes for each of the minor party/individual candidates moving off tickets and where would you suggest they go. I have the democrats splitting 40% Green ALP 30% Lib 20% Libs? People Power might jump straight to the ALP or again split three ways, likewise with the DLP but its hard to know. Family First I expect will hold ticket.. What percentage do you think will exhaust?
Any comments and suggestions? We can create split tickets and pump in the results and see what direction and outcomes might emerge.
At this stage of the count I see even at a strong disadvantage but then I am told there is more votes expected form where who knows. Not enough information available from the VEC (Very Elusive Corporation).
I don’t think there will be a move off ticket from the DLP to the Greens. If there is, it is my guess that it would be 3-5% at most. The only way it is likely to happen is if someone who would normally vote Green votes for the DLP because they know the candidate. There is too much difference in the party stances otherwise.
DLP to Labor and DLP to the Liberals? We really need all three…
I’ve just cleared a bunch of comments out of moderation – sorry for the delay.
Ok To outline in further detail how the segmentation systems works
If we take the Democrats vote for example
The last Democrat candidate standing is the Democrats number one.
When they are excluded all the Primary votes directly attributed to the number one spot (That’s the Democrats Ticket and any BTL votes that the no one held) are distributed as a single Transaction. The ticket vote travels in one direction and the BTL votes may or may not follow.
This could put a nother candidate just below quota with only a marginal number of percentage points to cross the line.
Its the next segmentation that I take issue too.
Under the rules of the Victorian System after the distribution of the Candidates first primary vote all other votes are bundled up and distributed based on the value of the vote. i.e votes of teh same value make up one single transaction.
All of the secondary primary (Full value votes) that came to the Democrats Number one are bundled up into one parcel and then distributed as one single transaction (This Transaction can be bigger then the Democrates original primary vote as we have seen with the DLP after it keeps collecting on its way.) Votes from People Power and any other below the line vote that has a full value attached to it that came to teh democrates on the way to elect a candiadte still in the race .. This is and can be a huge transaction often much bigger then the transaction before it and one that should be broken down into smaller transactions.
If a Candidate is elected on this segment, and there are still remaining candidates to be elected, then the surplus that this transaction can create is huge. The candidate elected may have a very large number of votes with very small value but now their value is increased above and beyond their original value. All of a sudden they are given extra value because under the VEC rules the quota is calculated on the number of papers not the value of the vote received. Votes that may have had a small value are all of a increased in value and full value votes decrease to a below value vote. All votes in the surplus are now transferred at equal value even though some were worth full value and other a fraction of full value.
This seriously distorts the one vote one value system
Segmentation was introduced to try and offset the paper based surplus calculation flaw, which itself was introduced to ease manual counting (A case of two wrongs trying to make a right) Whilst this exact scenario is not the case in Southern Metro it is never the less an issue of principle that MUST be addressed sooner rather then later.
If segmentation is to remain then this secondary full value vote pile bust be further segmented and not lumped together into one transaction.
Its this bundling up of secondary primary votes and treating then as a single truncation that’s of concern. If we are going to retain segmentation (and I argue get rid of it) we must 1) adopt a value based surplus calculation and 2) segment all primary votes based on the original parcel of first preferences. Each one being a single transaction.
I am not sure if this has made the issue clearer or if some readers are still confused.
Above the line voting reduces the likely impact of this but it still exists and the votes of the main parties can substantially increase as a result.
Analysis of the Victorian Local Government elections clearly shows this to be the case.
MelbCity says: I am not sure if this has made the issue clearer or if some readers are still confused.
Put me in the latter category. Perhaps it would be clearer if you rewrote the above using the more usual terms of “parcels” or “packets” and “transfers”. Antony, correct me if I’m wrong, but a “transfer” would normally consist of a number of “parcels”. Within every transfer, the parcels are dealt with in the order in which the candidate received them and as a unit. The wording of most Acts is a little hazy- they say that if, during a transfer, a candidate becomes elected, that candidate shall receive no more votes. On the other hand, they say that such an elected candidate shall not have their surplus distributed until the transfer is complete. So it is a little unclear whether an elected candidate ceases to receive votes at a “parcel boundary” or a “transfer boundary”. This was a question raised during the 2001 Vic Senate count and it was clear when examining the cut-up print-out that the latter was meant. That is why candidates can be elected on a distribution with rather large surpluses by this process.
On the progress in West Vic, I am informed that the process of entering BTLs is very slow. Many bundles have not even left the Assembly Electorate Offices yet. No BTL data appears to being entered into the computer yet: the verified BTLs are being bundled up and taken to the computer hall, but no entries are being made. The estimated time for pressing the buttons is next Wednesday week. In West Vic, many Carbines BTLs leave for the Greens. No absentee votes seemed to have shown up anywhere yet, but the Greens’ scrutineers report that The Greens % Absentee vote in The Assembly in the area is twice that of the “Ordinary”.
Clarification: I said No BTL data appears to being entered into the computer yet.
By this I mean the cut-up computer, where the images of the ballots are entered. Vote count data is, of course being entered.
These observations come from the Greens scrutineers. They say that there are very few srutineers from other Parties in the West Vic counting room. On one day this week, scrutineers (and counters?) waited around for some time to receive BTLs, but they gave up and went home.
Geoff: From my reading of the VIC Act, there is one difference between the Victorian rules and the Senate. In Victoria, the full value votes are split into two bundles. The first bundle is the primary votes for the excluded candidate. The second bundle is the full value preferences received by the excluded candidate. From my reading of the Commonwealth Act, these two bundles would be distributed in the same bundle.
As MelbCity points out, at the exclusion of the Democrat candidate, the Democrat primary votes will be distributed first. This will include all the Democrat ticket votes. If the Greens are close enough to a quota to be elected, then this bundle will elect the Green and create a small surplus. This surplus will consist mainly of Green and Democrat ticket votes and flow to Labor. However, Labor would like this surplus to be as large as possible. The size will depend on how many BTL votes leek to the Greens before the Democrat is excluded.
If the Democrat bundle does elect the Green, the small Green surplus is distributed, then the next bundle is the votes received by the Democrats as preferences. This includes the People Power preferences flowing to Labor and all the BTL preferences. None of these can flow to the Green at this point as the Greens have already filled their quota. It would have been better for Labor’s chances if these had gone into the surplus electing the Green, as this would have resulted in Green and Democrat tickets going into the surplus, effectively replacing BTL votes.
If the Democrat ticket does not get the Green over the line, then it will be the bundle of full value preferences received by the Democrats that will be distributed. This will include all of the People Power ticket votes that will flow to Labor. The question is then where the BTL votes go. If enough flow to the Greens to get them over the line, then this bundle will produce a very small surplus. Labor would certainly have preferred that these votes were distributed at the same time as the Democrat ticket votes, as it would have maximised the size and the number of Green ticket votes in any surplus.
The effect that MelbCity is talking about is that when votes at a reduced value are transferred to a candidate causing them to go above the quota, the current method used to calculate the surplus is based on a procedure that is better suited to a manual count. Any reduced value votes go back to full value in the calculation of the surplus. This can lead to some votes increasing in value, and can weight the votes in a manner that is certainly not optimum.
However, I disagree this will matter in the case of the Greens reaching a quota. The reduced value votes are nearly all locked into the Liberal and Labor tickets, not with the Greens. When the Green surplus is calculated, there will be reduced transfer value votes included, but their numbers will be very small and will not create much of an impact.
It may matter if the Liberals reach the third quota before the Greens. It would result in a tiny number of David Southwicks’s preferences being distributed first, then a number of full value preferences including the Family First and DLP preferences being distributed, before the Liberal ticket votes in the third bundle. You can try to take account of this, but again, it all depends on the BTL preferences.
Whether the Liberal or Greens reach a full quota first, it is in Labor’s interest that the surplus be as large as possible when they reach the quota. You can try and model this break-up of the votes, but in the end the point is it depends on the BTL votes, which we really don’t know a lot about.
Ummm guys have you not considered which electorates Absentees/ prepolls have been counted so far?
As far as I know Albert Park and Prahran are yet to be counted. If that is so, these are heavy Green Areas. Remember our lower house vote was 30% in some of these booths. On the night, our upper house votes were roughly 2% over the lower house vote in these seats.
Yes and no. First it is not a group vote that is distributed it is always the candidates vote. People forget this fact.
1. The first transaction consists of primary votes belonging to the candidate. If the candidate is the number one within the group then they hold the ticket vote as their first preference
3. The second transfer consists of all other full value preferences.
This includes primary votes from preferences within the the group that can to the candidate via an earlier exclusion PULS and other votes form any other candidate (I refer to this as a secondary or second hand Primary vote at full value.
3. The subsequent transfers are bundled up on the basis of their value and transferred in order of their value.
Note: (Transfers 2 and 3 are listed in the act as being the same based on the order of value of the vote but I have separated them a bit to try and make it more clearer.)
If a subsequent candidate is elected on the first transfer above then its the normal FIFO process, BUT if the First transfer 1 above happened to just bring a subsequent candidate just below quota then it is the next transfer that begins to seriously distort the system. The secondary (second hand) primary vote is the largest transfer as it includes the ticket vote plus and other non ticket full primary vote that was received in all previous transfers. This is can be a very huge bundle and gets bigger and bigger as the transfers consolidate
Most systems of segmentation break the primary full valued vote down into small parcels and more transactions. I am taking all this from my experience with the City of Melbourne count which is the same system used by VEC in this case.
It took me by surprised when I realised they were not segmenting further the Secondary primaries… I was in shock when I looed at teh VEC count sheet it sent be back to the legislation having thought there was a serious error in the VEC programe and then I realised the error was in the legislated requirements.
This distortion mainly comes into effect when there is a delayed election of the fourth candidate in a five member electorate. (It can some into effect in 3 or more member electortes but not so common when you have above the line voting which ony Melbourne City Council and the State Government have at present.)
You can have a situation where after the first transaction above a candidate who is the beneficiary a from a major ticket already elected has a lot of very small valued ballot papers in some case it be as low as 0.1 and they are sitting just below quota and whack this huge value of collected secondary full value votes lands on them and they are way way over over a quota. The candiadtes surplus is divided equally by all the ballot papers including the 25,000 full preferences just recived and the 100,000 small valued preferences . If and when this situation occurs the surplus of say 20,000 votes is divided equally by all 125,000 votes…
Having said this I am highlighting a flaw in the system and in most cases this does not eventuate because of the disciplined manner of the ABTL voting system (it skipps this particular segmentaion) but it can and will happen in an election if not this election in some future election.
It’s the major flaw in the current segmentation system adopted by the VEC. As I said I was shocked when I realized it was happening as I am use to each primary vote being broken down into smaller transactions but this is not the way it is done I am afraid. Which is why I am opposed now to segmentation. If it was broken down in smaller FIFO transactions I would not be so fussed. the grouping together of smaller valued votes of the same value I have no problem with. I can even except the idea of changing the order based on the highest to lowest value BUT I CAN NOT ACCEPT AGGREGATED DISTRIBUTION OF SECONDARY (SECONDHAND) PRIMARY VOTES AS A SINGLE TRANSACTION.
The best way of showing this is and if it happens. Often a subsequent candidate is pushed over the line by the first transaction of an exclusion BUT IT IS WHEN THEY ARE PUSHED OVER THE LINE BY THE SECOND TRANSCATON ABOVE THE PROBLEMS BECOMES WORST.
Having sounded the alarm over this serious flaw in the system I do not think it will apply in Southern Metropolitan but if it does then the flow on effect is considerable indeed. Segmentation meets surplus flaw.
If the surplus is calculated on the value of teh vote as opposed on the number of ballot papers then segmentation does not matter you could do away with it all together and transfer all of the candidates votes in one transaction. A value based forumla is by far the best and more democractic. one vote one value.
Data entry I am told starts next week. Monday is the dealine for postals to be received.
In reply to Upperhouse Expert. December 1 9:07 PM (Your post was delayed in moderation) I agree with your assessment and yes this puts Evan Thornley in the wasted quota basket. My count sheet, whilst not as spelt out as Antony’s is, in more detail as it shows the various segmentations that will apply. There will be more segments due to drift of BTL.
No counts over the weekend. It looks like the VEc is only updating its web count tally at 11:30 and 5PM. Still teh booth results have not changed since election night so I assume they have fogotten to update this page.
I have added an alanysis page on my spreedshet web page BUT it does not match the distribution because the distribution order takes into account the distortion of the paper based surplus formula and segmentation order which is crucial to the result.
Remeber also that the BTL votes for the ALP and the Liberal Party are locked on and except for a handfull of votes they will stay with the group.
The nuber one and two of teh liberal party groups BTL voets form part of the Liberal Quota and as do the ALP number one votes below the line for Lenders which are absorbed into Lenders quota. Monday we should begin to know more. Last day for postals to arrive. Still know idea of what is expected. We have to wait to the train to arrvive at the station. No timetable and no map to assist in knowing when..
Antony said: Geoff: From my reading of the VIC Act, there is one difference between the Victorian rules and the Senate. In Victoria, the full value votes are split into two bundles. The first bundle is the primary votes for the excluded candidate. The second bundle is the full value preferences received by the excluded candidate. From my reading of the Commonwealth Act, these two bundles would be distributed in the same bundle.
Umm, I’m not so sure the Senate is like that…. but maybe it IS different in an AEC computer count. In manual days, ballot papers were never actually moved around, “counting cards” with numbers written on them were moved around. As a candidate received a bundle of votes, either a card was written out and placed face-down on the stack, or a card from another candidate was transfrred to the stack. There would be one card for every bundle of votes held by a candidate. This business about transferring cards rather than ballot papers is not written into the Act nor the Regulations. Tasmania first used it, and the AEC adopted it. The only place it ever seems to have been mentioned is in the Senate Scrutiny Handbook, which I believe the AEC still cites as an explanation of the method.
When the exclusion took place, the stack of cards would be turned face up and the cards would be dealt out one-by-one from the top of the stack to the next available candidate. Thus, I believe that an excluded candidate with their own and other peoples’ full-value votes (N cards in total), would be dealt seriatum and the N full-value cards would not be transferred simultaneously. I don’t think the computerisation changed this principle.
I think it did Geoff. All votes are distributed as a single count for votes of equal value. Where once there would be dozens and sometimes hundreds of individual counts with each exclusion, now there is only 4 or 5, one for each transfer value.
At the 2006 Tasmanian election, equal transfer value counts were used for the first time. Instead of votes being moved in individual bundles, all bundles of equal value went out at the same time. So in Bass at the 2006 election, there were only 44 individual ‘counts’ to complete the distribution of preferences, where previously there were hundreds.
South Australia is the only state that retains individual counts for each bundle, the FIFO system that MelbCity keeps referring to.
Hey Dinesh, where did you get the info about overseas ballots from?
The problem comes towards the end when the number of secondary primary (Full Value) votes is huge. This pile should be broken down. Better still adopt a value based surplus formula and then you can have a single transfer one per candidate. The current rules are plain and simple unfair.
In discussion I am tld that if Evan Thornley wins the seat there will be a court challenge. If Evan loses and Southwick wins be it by the smallest margine the ALP can not afford the outcome of a challenge. It is the Government and it is in a winning position and if there is a court challenge and fresh elections are called then the ALP will most certainly lose out as the swing againt the governbment in a by-re-election or fresh electon would be much higher then last weeks State Election.
If Evan Thronely scapes in and crosses the line then the Liberal Party have nothing to lose and can only gain, they will challenge the election in court.
Are you doing this from the beach, Antony, or are you such a pathetic psephoholic that you have given up your weekend?
I have to hit the road guys. Sadly I can not hang around much longer waiting for the VEC to get its act together. Will try and look in on the election as time progresses but not sure if I will have an internet connection. Have e-fun.
Oh. I found out more about John Myers. He is a Doctor who has been caught up in a fight with the medical profession and the establishment. He is campaign for the Guardianship Act to be amended so as to separate physical from mental disability in its administration. There are elderly people out there that would prefer to spend there last days at home but their family do not want the burden and responsibility and prefer they are cared for in a hospice. Whilst I can not comment with any authority I think he may have a real and valid grievance. His votes are not directed towards any one but his campiagn is against the government and their unwilliness to review and admend the Guardianship Act.
Below is his campaign letter…
Dear Fellow Citizen, Southern Metropolitan Region,
Election time is the time to check and audit for quality assurance. The reason I am standing for election is to ensure that everyone has the right to a choice of their own to ensure their own happiness.
At present this is being denied to many, especially the elderly. frail or disabled, by decisions made in Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) who appoint administrators, such as State Trustees. or other agents of government to manage your finances, or Guardians appointed from the Office of the Public Advocate’s who tell people where they can and can’t live, whom they can .associate with, who they can see for medical treatment and when they can see them and they restrict legal access as well, against their wishes. This is “abuse” by government. It is an issue that politicians run away from rather than address. Threats, intimidation and reprisal are aimed at those who have principles and who object. The Ombudsman is not able to do anything about it by an Act of Parliament. According to a letter from his office. the Attorney General has no immediate plans to review the Guardianship and Administration Act, 1986, which is where the problem lies.
By voting for me you will give a message that is at the heart of democracy and your own independence. I will not be getting voting preferences from other candidates, but you can and must distribute mine by electing at least four other candidates to exercise your full choice in this election. Party politics is only part of it. Happiness, your own shared and hope is the rest.
Remember voting Myers, John Barry, 1, ensures your independence and your preferences, numbered from 2. 3, 4, 5 or more below the line on the ballot paper.
The recent document “strengthening Victoria’s response to Elder Abuse” excludes the government from the definition of abuse and aims to target families, where relationships exist. If’ adopted. as intended after the election by Labour, this would give further strength to the government to continue this abuse, but little or no chance for anyone to challenge the system. All that is required is that the Guardianship and Administration Act 1986 is amended, so as not to lump physical disability with .mental disability. Disability does not determine competence in real life, but is does according to the Act. Disability is not the same as a person’s capacity. The latter means that a person can still make choices. This is denied them on the basis that a physical or mental disability (not incapacity) exists.
This is an ageing population. Will the resolve and attitude of those who seek to restrict our freedoms change? We have to strengthen our position to continue to lead, to innovate, to show compassion and understanding. Each one of us has to bring this about.
Every candidate in the lower and upper house must be focused enough to do something about this. I am standing in this election to make you aware of this. because it is an issue of concern to everyone of us, young and old. It is an issue that is above party politics.
By voting 1 Myers, John Barry, and for at least four other candidates numbered in sequence from 2 to 5 below the line, you will be sending a message to Government
that we the citizens of this State care about one another enough to put party politics and local State issues aside for a moment in order to stop these ongoing abuses.
We are mature fellow citizens of Victoria. Australians.
We recognise that happiness is shared. We will no longer put up with these ongoing abuses.
We vote to stop abuse by changing the Guardianship and Administration Act 1986 and powers of VCAT, and support the award of costs and damages as compensation and as a check on abuses by agents of government.
We vote to stop those who wield power for the sake of it.
We expect that this will be done. Vote Myers, John Barry. I. and for at least four other candidates, by numbering your choices from 2 onwards in sequence below the line.
And in addition to augment the above:
intend to introduce an air of freedom rather than ongoing enforcement into our lives and to strengthen the good in government.
I support the youth, school children and school leavers. university study and apprenticeships, and give credit wherever credit is due – to mothers and fathers, to families and singles who lead productive lives.
I support more neighborliness in our region. Respect for the environment as a community resource that increases our standard of living, reduces depression and adds meaning to our lives.
Other Policies and attitudes:
Traffic and Police: Engage police – make the law enforcers aware they are citizens’ resources – by introducing merit points to promote safer driving. For every one “caught” speeding. give the same amount of merit points to the next three drivers not speeding to encourage safer driving practices. 12 merit points in 3 years equals $20 FREE PETROL from the Government.
2. Roof water strategy
3. Global energy in your own backyard – stop lopping, start growing
4. Possum project in schools – making houses for possums. Free as a gift to people to place safely in tall trees.
5. Seek capital gains bonuses from the Federal government for investors up to $50.000.00 (fifty thousand dollars) as a percentage of profit, for saving mature trees and incorporating innovative design in all projects.
6. Recognise friendly solutions to noise pollution and lighting disturbance.
7. Support economically sustainable policies of benefit to the community put forward-by government
8. Regard intellectual growth as the basis of future growth and development and at the same time reward productivity and craftsmanship.
9. Acknowledge innovation in a harmonious environment
10. Promote public trusts, i.e. Citizen groups, to review the decisions of government agencies and to promote arbitration as opposed to confrontation, to settle disputes, thereby increasing people’s say in their own governance.
11. To be open to your views and ideas and to address these in Parliament.
12. And to thank you for your support, this fine day.
MAINTAIN YOUR INDEPENDENCE and YOUR STRENGTH VOTE 1. MYERS John Barry and in sequence for at least four other candidates numbered from 2 to five, placing all the numbers carefully below the line on November 25 2006 • 5767
Authorised by John B Myers 39 Balaclava Road Balaclava 3183 – Printed by Avlon Printing 1a Viking Court Cheltenham North 3192 – Registered by the Victorian Electoral Commission
On the front page he says he is Jewish, and lost an election to Kew Council by four votes against a labour (sic) candidate about twenty years ago. He was born in South Africa and he became an Australian citizen in 1978. His children attended Camberwell High School and now attend the University of Melbourne.
I agree with John comletely. I have a physical disability and have run into many problems with the two types being combined as they are now. As far as I’m aware only the Greens and PP were campaigning to seperate these, so people voting on the basis of his letter are most likely to preference one of them. Probably Sue, she has been big on disabilty while Stephen highlights gambling more as the important issue. So my very uneducated guess is that most of his vote will go to Sue
Statement above sent but delayed in moderation
I want to wait until more votes come in before I comment further but I think Melbcity’s counting sheets show how difficult it will be for ET to win unless he gets the benefit of the Greens getting fourth spot and a big above the quota. I suspect this to be unlikely.
John Myers raises your platform a week after the election was finished!!
Mate your talking rubbish if you think State Trustees abuses the Disabled, if anything they are the ones whom save the disabled from the abuse.
The Guardianship & Administration act is a very clear and easy act to follow, I suggest if you have any proof of abuse, and I seriously doubt it, take it to VCAT, that’s what its there for.
I would advise that the Disabled deserve better than your muck racking. as I said VCAT and the Act are very open and easy to access.
By the way the Election ended last week.
bmwofoz, I didn’t say the State Trustees abuses us, I said the system is very bad. If you can find 5 people who are part of the system (disabled or carers) who are not very dissatified with how they are treated, I will stop using a wheelchair.
If the election has finished, then why don’t we have all conclusive results? Do you know something we don’t?
Londoner,
I wasn’t talking about the London votes.
I was talking about absentee and pre-polls and postals for the upper house in electorates of Albert Park and Prahran.
Rud in Beazley out. hello next prime minister
Hi Guys,
But I think Western Victoria is becoming interesting again with the Greens set to overtake the ALP and hence giving the last seat to the DLP! Fancy, the Greens helping the DLP. Interesting days ahead
Maybe time for some Labor humble pie in relation to the Greens. Is lenders the best LC leader in this position?
Latest update for SOuth Metropolitan. If you do the assume all votes are ticket vote, Thornley wins the last spot by 440 votes. If you take the three party totals plus assured ticket votes, then the Liberals are 1418 short of a quota, Labor 2519 and the Greens 547. There are 4,480 minor party BTL votes that decide the outcome. Bit only 78.13% counted. Clearly lots more votes to be entered that could change the relative %’s.
Antony, or anyone else, when you write “…If you take the three party totals plus assured ticket votes, then the Liberals are 1418 short of a quota, Labor 2519 and the Greens 547. There are 4,480 minor party…” Are you making the assumption that the votes that come in for the 22 odd % left will come in at the respective totals that the parties have already achieved. IE 45% of the votes that come in will be Libs, 13% Greens and 30% ALP. I have rounded.
I just saw the news Centaur… one of the first good things Labor has down in the past few years….
Well, it will be only about 15% to come, not 22%. The votes short figure is based on the progressive quota, not the final quota, and I am using the current % votes. These may change with the votes to come, so you can say I am assuming the %’s will not change. The point I’m making is that none of the parties reach a full quota based in ticket votes, which means the final seat will be decided by BTL votes.
When I say the Libs are 1,418 short, I am saying that the total Liberal group vote, plus Family First and DLP ticket votes, leaves the Liberals 1,418 votes short of the third quota on the current totals. Those 1,418 votes can come from the pool of 4,480 minor party BTL votes.
Close enough that final that the exhausted vote may play a part.
When will the counts be completed?
At the moment, across the regions, an average of 70% of the Booths seem to have returned BTL votes, about 130,000 votes in total. One might expect 183,000 at the end. The Greens vote is “enriched” by an average factor of 3.2 in the BTL compared to the Ticket. Disregarding enrichment or depletion in others’ BTL, this should see the Greens come out at the end of counting with about 0.025 extra quotas in each Region (avg). This won’t be enough to change any results, I expect, but obviously Absent and BTL aberrant BTLs could skew this either way. Are any Booth Tickets still outstanding? In the assembly, the TCP in the Absentee vote is about 5% higher than in the booths, although there are only Melb, Bruns, Northcote and Rich to go by.
It can’t be done???
(Greens currently have a quota on primaries in NMET.)
Current count expressed as quotas:
Liberal 2.9933
ALP 1.9921
Green 1.0097
Myers 0.0048
Thus Labor picks up a surplus of 0.0097 from the Greens, giving Thornley 2.0018 and the fifth seat. Labor will also get some of Myers’ votes. This of course assumes that the BTL votes stay within their tickets, or that the drift out of the tickets cancels out, and also assumes that Labor slips no further on the absent votes. All heroic assumptions, but at the moment ET is a ahead by a small nose.
Perhaps I am smoking the wrong stuff, but the DLP has hit the front in Western Victoria.
Yes. But have a look at the latest Western Vic results.
The Greens are making a late run and currently out poll the ALP. Assuming BTL votes follow the ticket, by my reckoning, the Greens are on 0.527 quotas and the ALP on 2.521 quotas. This would deliver the final seat to the DLP on ALP preferences, and depending on the results in South Metro, a share in the BoP with the Greens. The Greens must be hoping there run is curtailed, but there ain’t that many more votes to count.
This is another result that is likely to be decided by BTL votes.
Probably the best result as this would temper the exesses of the Greens on social policy.
well if nationals get above dlp then the greens win 3 senates in vic.
well if nationals get above dlp then the greens win 3 senates in vic. would that then be the bop for the greens?
Tom the Grouper, sorry for the delay in moderating your comments. I’m back in Perth now so will be dealing with these more promptly from now on.
Greetings all,
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you hit that one on the head tp
argh not the dlp again!!! cant they just ban that party?
You can’t ban the DLP. Kevin Rudd stated on The 7.70 Report tonight that his mother voted DLP. Steve Bracks, Clare Martin, and now Kevin Rudd – all from DLP families. That’s one third of ALP leaders in the country produced by DLP families. You better get used to it.
I don’t really see why we should get used to dlp influenced families, given the party is dead its hard to see the dozen remaining members of the party spawing to many future pollies.
ps hats of to all those making excellent contributions in this thread
In South Met, if all the votes were Tickets, the last seat is currently only a 40 vote margin to the Libs. BTL drift will weaken both of these, but probably weaken the ALP more. Greens have about a 646 surplus, any BTL drift is more likely to aid, rather than hinder them. PPV have 969BTL votes and DEM 1049. A 50% drift here will weaken Greens by 1000 votes, but BTL drift from the ALP would probably strengthen them to a greater degree. On election night, it was said 50% of the ALP BTL favoured Greens ahead of ALP #3. If so, this would be worth 2000 votes to Greens. Sounds a trifle optimistic, but still the real debate seems to be ALP vs LIB rather than GRN vs ALP vs LIB. If the DLP gains on FFV (even if FFV don’t fall back) the FFV exclusion would still leave the LIB 40 short of a quota (which would only be worse with FFV drift and if they fell back), then DEMs elect Greens and the Green surplus elects the ALP.
Someone standing in a queue for coffee at Parly House in Canberra tonight, was approached by an ALP strategist, who repeated the “last 100 votes from London will decide it” line and, if they lost, the ALP would mount a challenge. That may of course, just be repeating other peoples’ gossip, rather than being a definite statement of ALP intent.
Thanks Chris for your comments on the DLP. The DLP operating at the moment is comprised from those members who voted against the party voting itself out of existence in 1976. The DLP made a mistake voting against supply in 1974 when Vince Gair ratted on the party and accepted Gough’s not very principled appointment of himself as Ambassador to Ireland. Gough was happy to see the DLP eliminated, but the consequence was he had to deal with Liberal Senators who voted against much of the ALP government’s legislation. The DLP Senators voted with Whitlam more than the Liberals did, and his government would have been much better off with the DLP holding the balance of power, whatever he thought of DLP policies on social issues. While the DLP policies on moral issues where not those of Gough and much of the newer university educated socially liberal ALP MPs, it did support socially progressive social welfare issues, and it was a party that supported families, something Family First now claims to do but its members, and I’ve found them to be very nice people outside polling booths even if politically naive, come largely from a Pentecostal rather than from a Catholic background and do not have the same commitment to lower income people that the ALP traditionally has.
In 1974 the DLP lost all its four Senators, Byrne, Kane, McManus and Little. After that its branch structure in Victoria collapsed and the writing was on the wall. The trouble with the DLP was that it was most effective campaigning against the ALP. and particularly against Communist influence within the ALP. When the Whitlam government was elected in 1972 it lost one of its major campaigning slogans. Principle cost the DLP all its MPs in 1974. The DLP’s major problem was that it was too much a party of principle. It was too pure. The electorate seem to like their MPs to be a little bit naughty.
If Peter Kavanagh wins in Western Victoria (Country) Region he will be Victoria’s first DLP member of the upper house to have been elected as a DLP candidate (the former DLP MLCs were originally elected in 1952 and in one case in 1947 and in another at a by-election in 1954 as ALP candidates, for half of the Legislative Council retired every three years). He will be the first DLP member of that chamber since 1958, when the DLP led by Jack Little (not the boxing commentator on television) lost all its five members. The DLP also lost its sole remaining member in the lower house in 1958, Frank Scully in Richmond, who won election in 1955 as an Australian Labor Party (Anti-Communist) or Coleman-Barry Labor as the DLP was called at the first election it contested in Victoria after the ALP split. The ALP called itself Cain Labor at the first state election after the split in 1955, and also believe it or not at the federal election later in 1955, when, for example, Jim Cairns posters around Richmond called him the Cain Labor candidate, a fact that his recent biography doesn’t mention, possibly because Paul Strangio is not as old as I am and doesn’t remember it!
Well! looks like my vote could be decisive after all…..
Thanks for your summation, Lyle, and for some new information. I agree with almost all of it, but I would like to add some comments and at least one disagreement. I’ll be reasonably brief as I don’t want to frustrate some readers by having this discussion of the Victorian election hive off into the by-ways of the past.
When the Victorian Central Executive discussed how the DLP senators should vote on the deferment of supply in 1974, there was a strong division of opinion. Frank McManus had been told by Billy Snedden that there would be a joint LCP-DLP ticket if the DLP voted to defer Supply. I did not believe that would happen and thought that the DLP should not vote against Supply. Whatever the result of the coming half-Senate election, the long-term DLP senators would be there for another three years – where there’s life, there’s hope. A double dissolution would risk the party’s whole future. Being young at the time, I did not put my opinion as forcefully as I would today. The motion passed by the executive was to the effect that the senators should not vote to block Supply unless it was in the interest of the nation and the party, which of course left the decision up to the senators without any guidance from the executive. Of course, Billy Snedden did not – perhaps could not – keep his promise. By not forcefully distinguishing themselves from the Liberal opposition in the Whitlam years, the DLP senators had lost their identity as a clearly separate party – and they paid the price.
There were tensions in the DLP between those who saw it as a temporary necessity until the ALP reformed and those who saw it as centre party with its own future.
The DLP was closed down outside Victoria because it was not in other states as independent a political party as it was in Victoria. Frank Dowling and Jim Brosnan had worked very early in the DLP’s existence to ensure sources of funding separate from those of the NCC. So even though there was an attempt to amalgamate the DLP with the Country Party, the NCC couldn’t pull it off in Victoria. The Victorian DLP was not only independent of the NCC, but had members who were hostile to it. The party continued because the officials and the members in Victoria were committed to it. Tonight is the first time that I have heard that the DLP’s branch structure had collapsed. The basic reason for closing down was that we no longer had sufficient workers to raise the money. We still had, from memory, about 20,000 potential donors, and as far as I know we could man the booths on election days, but we did not have sufficient people to knock on doors and ask for the money.
The Family First booth worker I spoke to on election day to told me that 500 of the 800 members of his Church had volunteered to help in the campaign and that his Church had provided six candidates. When I pointed out to him that the Family First emblem looked like a bishop’s mitre, he said that they really didn’t have anything to do with Catholics. I was thinking Anglican!?
It seems that Evan Thornley may lose in Southern Metropolitan. In that case, if Peter Kavanagh wins in Western Victoria, it will increase the Bracks Government’s options in negotiations. It will have the DLP, the Greens and the Nationals to choose from. If Kim Beazley sees any return to politics by himself as Lazarus with a quadruple by-pass, the DLP’s resurrection would be more like Buffy’s.
PS Don’t forget Nino Randazzo in the Italian Senate.
I voted in BTL in South Met from the UK – Dem (No 3 candidate first though) then Labor by-passing the Greens, so that’s one London BTL vote Labor will pick up….
Guys You can not take the quota’s ate apply that logic to the count. Sorry but the fold up is a very important part of the results. As I have been saying since day one the system is not pure Proportional Representation there are a number of issues that need review. The Paper based surplus calculation and the system of segmentation. I am not the road. Heading to Turkey.. but if I can find time I will update my analysis to take into account the latest figures. If I recall correctly the order of distribution favours Labor and unless the Liberals party can secure 50% of the vote. Someone has to be the wasted quota and as it turns out the party that crosses the line first is often at a disadvantage in the fold up.
PS the statement above by John Myers was posted by me and not John Myers. I posted it here out of interest so people could see where his support base was likely coming from. I think he might have an issue and could have suffered and injustice. But I am not an expert in this area so I can not comment with any authority or detail of the issue at hand.
Nino Randazzo stood for the DLP in the 1961 State Election, in Bill Barry’s seat. The late Bill Barry is tPeter Kavanagh’s grandfather. The NCC in this state election were working with Family First, even having staff members running as candidates. This is why the DLP are a chance, its so NCC free!
Here’s another piece of pure gossip: The 15,000 outstanding votes in Souh Met are said to be languishing in boxes in the Sandringham office. True or not? Perhaps they will start counting them today?
Politics Obsessed,
I need to recant. Last friday I pronounced on Western Victoria:
So that’s a cast iron 3 ALP 2 Liberal.
Memo Geoff Lambert: I think you are reporting, possibly at second hand, a conversation I had with Bob Brown in the coffee queue at Parliament House yesterday. I am an ALP staffer (until 23 Dec), but not a “strategist.” I said to Bob that South Metro would be decided by a handful of votes, including those from overseas, and that if it was that close it would probably end up in court. I did NOT say that the ALP would mount a challenge, because (a) I have no knowledge of what the Vic ALP would or would not do, and (b) in my opinion there would no point in an ALP challenge if we narrowly lost, because historically governments always do badly at by-elections following court challenges.
Edit:
I inadvertently pressed submit:
I was intending to continue, that it now seems probable that the Greens late surge and the ALP decline will mean that Carbines will trail the Greens, and Labor preferences will elect the DLP candidate Kavanagh. I stress probable, but the seat is now definitely in the melting pot.
In my defence, it seems that in the most recent 12,000 odd votes counted, Labor has secured only about one-third (compared to 42.3% of the prior count), while the Greens percentage of the latest votes is around 11% (cfd. to under 8.5% up to that point).
Since they’re now over 90%, I’d tentatively suggest that there won’t be more twists, although the outcome is now definitely subject to the idiosyncrasies of BTL prefernces.
How many votes ARE outstanding?…. more than enough to make a big difference?
The registration is 413,508. LC Participation rate in this region in 2002 was 89.1%, and this would predict 368,000 votes to have been cast. Counted so far are 327,000 (79.1%), so the “outstanding†votes are currently about 41,000.
The web-site reports 155 out of 236 primary voting centres returned. I don’t really know what this means for votes, but I take it to most likely mean that this is the number that have returned BTLs. All have probably returned ATLs. On this basis, and all booths being roughly the same size(?) and there being no non-booth BTLs in the BTL total, there are now up to 10,000 booth BTLs outstanding.
The other 31,000 votes outstanding could be non-booth votes (ATL and BTL). Non-booth vote in southern Melbourne LA seats is currently running at around 10 or 11%. This would translate to about 39,000 in S Met (of which 35,000 would be ticket votes and 4.000 BTLs. Something has to give somewhere, probably booth BTL outstanding.
So, a very very rough compromise estimate might be
Booth BTLs 5,000- ish
Non-Booth Tickets 33,000-ish
Non-Booth BTLs 3,000-ish
All of these could potentially upset the current applecart, because any of them could show deviations from the Group %ages. Furthermore the BTL could also show drift. Debating about less than 100 seat margins and “ending up in court†seems a bit previous under such big uncertainties.
GUys I took time out while not sleeping waiting for my plane.
As of 5:00PM on December 4 results I do not see the Greens out polling the ALP. I have no real changes in the results. Have updated my count sheets (in part) http://melbcity.topcities.com
Sourthern Metroplotian is looking better for Evan but it still is a cliff hanger.
There should be a record well adn truely by now of how many ballot papers had been issued and how many are expected back. The quiality of public disclosure and accountabiliuty of the VEC count is appauling. If their is a msysterious box or too would not surpoises me. Somone needs to make sure the VEC is not providing a tally after the fact. By not disclosing the number of vaotes returned before they are counted raises ongoing concern, One reason why they should have publihsed the polling place details and provided a breakdown of postal votes issued.
One of these issues is the fauklt of Antony Green whoi in deciding he did not want polling place details the VEC decided not to publish the detailed results. The VEC has a wider public interest and responsibility and not just to the media. Previuos AEC elections pollingbooth results for the Sennate were avaliable thought out the election and should have been publihsed by the VEC. This is not an open and transparent count. A review is in the making.
Sorry I have just checked and whilst teh VEC published summary is showing December 4 17:00 as the latest update the FTP xml datafiles are dated December 3. It looks like the VEC has stopped updating it xml data feed. (Or at least there dated datasfeed. Not a very p[rofessionally managed show I am afraid. Anyway my results analysis data sheet is based on the Screen publihsed results and not their dodgy data feed files service. Accountability and professionalism is out the window with the VEC I am afraid. We seriously should be considering abolishing or restucturing tyhe Victorian Electoral Commission to make it much more accountable and professional, stop the duplication ans watse of limited public resources.
mmmmmm, DLP close gap on National in Western Vic, but Greens now 800 ahead of Labor. If DLP make up 100 on Nats on BTL votes, they win last seat, if not, the Greens do on the 11:27 count. In SOuth Met, Libs make advances and nudge back ahead on the all votes as tickets method. Breaking into ticket and BTL groups, Libs close to 864 short, Greens 413 but Labor now 3359 short.
Antony, what are the latest “confirmed” and uncertain numbers in the Legislative Council?
Certain are 19 ALP, 15 LIB, 2 NAT and 1 GRN. That is likely to become 2 GRN when the 4th seat is decided in South Metro. The 5th seat in South Metro is between Labor and Liberal, barring a fall in the Green vote. The 5th Seat in Western VIC is between Labor, DLP and GRN, with GRN favoured on the current count.
Thanks.
The more time goes on, the more Thornley is looking like a dead duck.
Someone fromm the VEC is monitoring this site.
They have now just updated their web site to include the December 4 data one day late?
XML data feed??
I think they are just a bit too busy down there to push the XML buttons very frequently. Yesterday the pushed them and we got Friday’s and Sunday’s updates. I imagine we might get a new feed this evening, if they can find time to scratch themselves.
If teh Greens vote outpoolls Labors surplus + BTL primaries in Western Victoria then in provided the DLP survive the NP the DLP are elected. If teh DLP fall below thye NP then the Greens might get up… I need to review the latest data just publihsed (one day late) VEC not at work.
Any news ifthe VEC will be publishing the BTL data-entry details periodically during the data-entry process. If not why not?
Does anybody remember the alien and un-Australian political tradition from whence the DLP came? Reactionary anti-modernist anti-enlightenment Catholicism played a considerable role in destroying interwar European democracy and paving the way for the Holocausts; Action Francaise (AD2000 like them), Father Tiso, Vichy France. German Catholic Centre party voting for Hitler etc. etc. Santamaria thought that Hitler wasn’t to blame for WW2. This is why sensible Christian democratic Catholics like Gilroy correctly judged Santamaria to be a dangerous man. Good work by the Victorian ALP.
VEC wib site reporting data updated as of 11:00 AM Dec 5 but data file is not available. It is one session behind. So much for online open transparency and professionalism.
VEC site still reporting not all polling booths counted. Again poor online mangement to blame here.
OK I have just updated my data with teh recently published out of date datafile…
Western Victoria is back on teh watch list alright. On a ticket vote anaysis the NP are up for a second position. Thanks to the DLP falling behind the NP. The Green/ALP raltionship is also very close.
Have to catch a lane.. will update my spreedsheet when I arirve in Turkey and can get hold of an internet connection.
XML data feed- more.
They just found time to scratch themselves! Two new XMLs have just been uploaded. A good fairy, making a meek enquiry, seems to have prompted this. (Not me).
see a doc MelbCity
I asked the VEC if they could keep updating the file, so I suppose that makes me the good fairy. My main concern was to get all the re-counts in the lower house to update the ABC website.
However, as they start doing all the BTL data entry for the LC, the data in the media feed will no longer be accurate. The results feed is generated from the election results reporting system, which is not intimately tied in to the BTL data entry system. The entry is being verified against the booth results entered, but it is unclear at what rate the results system will be udpated with corrections identified in the data entry of ballot papers.
But the website will be correct as an official source.
Can someone explain why in Ferntree Gully they have the Libs as winning here…
Results after distribution of preferencesCandidate Party Votes after distribution % votes
ECKSTEIN, Anne ALP 18287 49.98%
WAKELING, Nick Liberal 18304 50.02%
and the ALP winning here
Candidate Party Preferred votes % Preferred votes
ECKSTEIN, Anne ALP 18354 50.05%
WAKELING, Nick Liberal 18319 49.95%
Why are there different figures vetween the top and bottom and who has won – Eckstein or Wakeling?
I think I have it. The top one is the second count and the bottom one is the first count? So you would be pretty pissed off if you were Eckstein. One minute you have one and the next you have lost.
Make that TWO good fairies!
Antony, are you referring to the data entry of ballot paper “images” for the cut-up? They wouldn’t STOP doing BTL number updating on the other computer once they start entering the images, would they?
On the latest XML feed, the Libs margin has stretched to over 400 votes in E Met.
Which only goes to show
At stumps on the 10 day the result in South Met is even closer than the cricket.
Counting all votes as ticket votes, narrowly delivers the 4th seat to the Greens, and leaves the major party contest for the 5th seat indistiguishable to up to 3 decimal places. ie. literally a handful of votes.
Bring out the coin.
In Western VIC the DLP would have to suffer considerable net leakage of BTLs to be excluded by the NATs, and I suspect BTLs will likely favour the Greens over the ALP, which should deliver the 5th seat to the DLP!
Counting must be almost done @ 92.77%.
Yes.
There must be something screwy with the front page though. It reports that only 311 out of 393 centres have recorded votes. These numbers haven’t changed for days, but the votes have
And the winner IS the DLP. (usual caveat re BTL)
In SMET, there may be an “unusual situation” Calling the Group votes Ticket votes leads to the situation that, with one seat left to go, the ALP has .975 of a quota and LIB has 0.996 and nobody else in the race. In theory, the race would stop at that point and the Lib be declared the winner without the need to cut-up ALP. But, imagine the chagrin if they got cut up with 97.5% of a quota. They probably won’t get this close of course… they probably have more leakage than the Libs.
Cheers Melbcity, when I voted I wonder who he was, I hadn’t realised you placed it on here until I had posted.
I was reading bottom up.
Geoff, the website will still be updated. However, all the media files are generated by something complex which isn’t automatically updated to produce xml. The data entry program is a dedicated set of modules designed to validate the ballot paper. Situations where ballot papers are declared informal, or where the BTL is informal and the ballot defaults to the ticket if marked but only periodically updated to the main database recording primary votes by booth.
As I keep saying, the missing booths are the 7 E-centres in each district, most of which are zero or very tiny numbers of votes. They haven’t been through and marked them all as entered.
The 5:22pm count today is mixed news for Labor. Thornley slips back, but the Greens advance. With the Democrat ticket, the Greens are now 428 beyond the quota, the Liberals 1414 short and Labor 3912 short. If the Greens continue to improve, the Green surplus which is mostly Green and Democrat tickets will flow very heavily to Labor. And before MelbCity starts on about ’segmentation’ again, that surplus is before the second bundle of Democrat votes is distributed. There are 4,895 BTL votes unallocated on this count. Still too close to call.
Western Victoria has firmed for the D.L.P. Where last night the DLP were 471 behind the Nationals at a key count, tonight they are 816 ahead. Which means the final count is DLP, ALP, GRN, with the third place determining the result. Last night Labor was 117 votes behind the Green, tonight 98 behind. I have about 3,000 BTL votes determining the outcome.
Based on BTLs being broadly similar to Tickets, at the moment the LC is beginning to look like:
ALP 19
LIB 16
NAT 2
GRN 2
DLP 1
I think it rather unlikely that the BTL drifts will change this much. A couple of races are close, but likely leakages will in most cases make them less close. If the BTLs change the cut-up, it will more likely be the order in which things happen, rather than the ultimate result.
Yes, but what about the vote to be counted, of which there is clearly some to come in South Metro. I wouldn’t call South metro yet. You’d need to know which lower house districts have yet to enter postal, absents etc.
Antony,
You may remember me as “Cinderella man” that engaged you in a lenthy (but helpful for me) discussion on this blog about the merits of OPV v’s CPV.
It would appear that the DLP will now take the final seat for Western VIC, which would be as “miraculous” as Steve Fieldings rise to the Senate chamber. Maybe the Catholic God is as powerful as the Evangelical’s God?
Given your advocacy for OPV, would you like to comment on its application in this election and the relative merits v’s CPV in the Senate.
Do you yet have a measure of the % that voted BTL here v’s that in the Senate poll?
If this system were applied to the Senate, would it have made any difference with respect to Fieldings election?
Would you prescribe a different version of OPV to that which applied in this election?
It would appear that few recommendations from the JSCEM were adopted, and the ones that were seemed only to favour the encumbant. Surprise!
Care to comment?
Either way, it would appear that the GVT is alive and well.
Ray,
Antony can better respond to your questions directed to him, but you can work out the proportions of BTL/ATL by referring to the VEC record of the count. There each party’s ATL vote is referred to as its “Group” figure, then the individual tally for each candidate represents the BTL (it’s impossible to vote BTL without giving a 1st preference for one of the 20+ candidates). For example in Eastern Metro, the (rounded) figures at this stage of the count are 364,000+ formal votes, just under 347,000 ATL, just under 18,000 BTL which is a little less than 5%.
You can do these calculations for each of the regions.
I advocated limiting the number of preferences a party could put on its lodged ticket. This was to encourage a party to put like minded parties on its ticket and not engage in strategic preference swaps.
I’d be happy to abolish ticket voting altogether, but not if voters then had to fill in preferences for every party, even if that was above the line preferences. You would increase the informal vote, and I still see no reason why voters, after voting for the candidates they know and want, must be corralled into expressing preferences for further candidates they neither know nor care for.
However, i’m not getting into a discussion on that again. All I’ll say is that if the DLP win, it is exactly the same as the victory for Family First, a construct of group ticket voting and compulsory preferential voting.
> Can someone explain why in Ferntree Gully they have the Libs as winning here…
“The VEC declared the Liberal candidate Nick Wakeling as winner of Ferntree Gully district by 17 votes after the final close of counting at 5pm on Monday afternoon. The losing ALP candidate Anne Eckstein has however asked for a second and final recount.”
“The VEC also declared Hastings and Kilsyth as Liberal gains with Gembrook, Forest Hill and Mount Waverley retained by the ALP.”
I don’t believe there is a need to cover the ground again because I believe that we both concluded that OPV would bias a result more to a minor party that achieved more than half a quota than one that achieves less than half, compared to CPV.
In this election I would be interested to see how many BTL votes exhausted, and what impact this has had in the determination of the couple close calls in WVIC and SMET.
Many would argue that an exhausted vote is a bad as an informal vote, and in the interest of democratic purity we would hope to minimise these.
I would be interested in your view on the take up (or not) of the JSCEM recommendations.
South metro – if you were a betting man. Taking into account
1 ATL votes
2 BTL expected votes
3 lack of knowledge about which postals and absentees have been counted
4 preference flows
5 Anything else of relevance
Who would you tip to gt the final 2 spots. I am going with the Greens and Lib’s in that order – anyone else care to make a tip?
The JSCEM recommendation not taken up was the abolition of group ticket voting. There were two reasons. The AEC were horrified about what would happen to informal voting. The political parties were horrified at what it would do to the size and design of their how to vote cards.
You are verballing me on optional preferential voting. I can’t think of an electoral system which isn’t biased in favour of parties that get more of the vote than parties that get fewer votes. If you get more votes, you are more likely to be elected. Ummmm, what’s wrong with that?
And in terms of ‘democratic purity’ some would view an exhausted ballot is as bad as an informal vote?!?!?! Give me a break. I’ve got better things to do than correct such silly statements.
Just to raise the question of the Myers vote again….:-(
In my simulation, I have factored him in as though he registered a conservative-leaning ticket with FFV>DLP>NAT>LIB>ALP>PPV>GRN. That seems to be the way most of these UNG chappies’ voters express preferences. If we swapped ALP and LIB it could make a difference. Ditto if many exhaust.
I suppose nobody has yet found out whether that is remotely true in SMET?
I would think there is a case for making the complete BTL “images” available for public scrutiny- at least after the election- to enable us simulators to get a better handle on some of the paths which BTLs can take. The usual cut-up print-out is only useful in this regard for showing where second preferences go. After that they become hidden inside other parcels.
What’s wrong with that !
An electoral system should have no bias at all !
One vote, one value and every vote counted.
We should do everything we can to maximise those principles.
Geoff,
When the “line” system was first introduced (for the 1984 Senate election, iirc) the rule was that all ticket preferences were displayed in the polling booth. I suppose that this was only of interest to a tiny minority of voters- like those of us who spend time on the poll bludger and similar sites, lol – it did at least mandate transparency. I expect that the procedure was dropped because it mattered only to the few, and those who might have been misled by the ALP-FF deal in 2004 for example would not have bothered to consult the display anyway.
As I understand it, this information has not been available to voters without their chasing it for 15-20 years. During that time, I only saw it published on the web either by the Electoral Commission or as it was during the recent election by Antony Green.
However, on 25 November, there was a notice on the enquiries table at my booth (so I assume that it was a standard instruction toelection-day staff) that the group tickets were available for inspection.
It was a prominent notice on the enquiries table, but would not have attracted the attention of most voters who were shepherded to the tables where the clerks were armed with he electoral roll and the ballot papers.
I think that above the line voting opens up the pandora’s box of murky preference deals – which favour parties who are prepared to deal with anyone (such at Liberal, Labor, DLP, People Power etc). There is zero public input to such deals, and often close to zero party input too – the deals are the provice of apparatchiks. Talk to any Liberal or Labor candidate – they will tell you that it is “out of their hands”. Now we see the DLP getting elected in a very small primary vote as a result, with about 95% of the electorate not even knowing who they are, let alone voting for them.
I don’t think this is good for democracy.
The ATL votes should all exhaust with the party selected – with no preference flows – as the voters are NOT expressing THEIR preference. Voters who wish to express their preference could still go BTL to do so.
Has anyone called the VEC re the situation in Ferntree Gully? Their website gives the seat to both Labor and Liberal at different places on the same page. The figures giving the seat to Labor seem to be more advanced, but who knows?
Geoff, from my research on past ballot papers, for which I was allowed access to the ballots, you can bet some of those ungrouped votes will leak to the nearest group on the ballot paper as preferences. Once they’ve pulled that end of the ballot paper to the middle of the voting booth, it seems voters are a bit inclined to stay at that end of the ballot paper for initial preferences. That is very evident from the (admittedly giant) ballot papers at the 1999 and 2003 NSW elections.
Peter Fuller says When the “line†system was first introduced (for the 1984 Senate election, iirc) the rule was that all ticket preferences were displayed in the polling booth.
No, I want to see every BTL ballot paper cast, not the Tickets. At the moment, the only people who see what has been written on these papers are the counters and the scrutineers….. and Antony*, whose observation above is fascinating. There was already a donkey and reverse donkey effect seen in the tablecloth ballot because of the way that voters draped it over the desk. Evidently it extends to the preferences they choose too (they had 283 to choose from)
Anyway….
New SMET primary figures have come in and guru Green has been further elevated one step in the peerage, because his suggestion that things could alter has been well and truly vindicated. The Greens now get a sufficiently high primary that, when they are elected, they push the ALP over the line, and FFV never get to be cut-up. Counting is now 87% complete here..
(*I did see some of these at Rosebery, when I was shown how the hail-storm damaged so many of them that they feared a new election might be called for. I was only allowed a peek.)
I too would like to see the GVTs abolished, but the cost to democracy would be an unacceptable rise in informality.
I just did a little experiment using my own home brewed calculator. Applying Antony’s suggestion of limiting preferences to say the first 5 from the GVTs in Western VIC, the DLP still get elected. So if the intention is to eliminate “perverse” results like this, then this will not work.
One must question whether there is anything intrinsically wrong with investing my vote with my party of preference, so as they can maximise the chances of getting their candidates elected.
Preferred 3 teir CPV system:
1. Vote 1 ATL exercises GVT; or
2. Number all groups ATL – preferences flow to candidates within group in order of list;
3. BTL – for those who want to order the candidates to their hearts desire.
-> Adam C re: FTG
The first VEC count gave the win to the ALP by 30 votes, they then did a recheck/recount which ended up with the Liberals ahead by 27
The Liberal is notionally the winner according to the VEC as no more votes will be counted – the ALP candidate has however asked for recount
Yes all credit to Antony, but let the record show that I picked the Thornley-on-Green-surplus scenario two days ago.
Today:
ALP 1.86872 + 0.08042 (PP) + 0.02214 (Rita) = 1.97128
Lib 2.79566 +0.12732 (FF) + 0.06622 (DLP) = 2.98920
Green 0.93386 + 0.10032 (AD) = 1.03418
ALP + Green surplus = 2.10546
Ray said
Ray: “One must question whether there is anything intrinsically wrong with investing my vote with my party of preference, so as they can maximise the chances of getting their candidates elected.”
Problem is, what YOU want out of preferences and what THEY want may be different. And what they want may be to influence who else gets elected. The cynics say that WVIC is a prime case in point, with the ALP preferencing the DLP in the shrewd knowledge that it might just come to fruition. The 1999 NSW LC election saw this funnelling take place on a monumental scale and was, of course, why their system was changed.
At any rate, the only way a party’s registered preference ticket can, by itself, enhance a party’s own chances is by creating a certain impression among the voters. This can be a strong effect and many voters vote according to their perceptions about “who they are giving their preferences to”, even in single-seat contests, where there is no such a thing as a Ticket.
On FTG….. some sort of a recount or recheck must have been going on. The booth totals have vanished from the XML and even some of the candidate totals have been taken away. I suspect the XML was posted right in the middle of the FTG people re-keying their data.
Correction to my table above:
Today:
ALP 1.86872 + 0.08042 (PP) + 0.02214 (Rita) = 1.97128
Lib 2.79566 +0.12732 (FF) + 0.06622 (DLP) = 2.98920
Green 0.93386 + 0.10032 (AD) = 1.03418
ALP + Green surplus = 2.00546
I am advised that there are 5,500 votes still to count. If they are absent votes, Thornley is alive. If they are postals, he is probably dead – but they are more likely to be absents.
Geoff,
I understand that it can be used for the purpose of determining who else the party might want to work with in parliament, and if you don’t like that choice you can go below the line (or preferably ATL per my option 2 if it were permitted).
If West VIC goes to the DLP, assuming ET gets up in SMET, then if the ALP want to legislate to the right, they have the DLP option. If they want to legislate to the left, they team with the Greens. Sounds like a smart choice, and much better than being a slave of the left with the Greens holding the BoP.
However, the party can maximise their candidates’ chances by preference swaps, which is what others seem to find so objectionable. The only way to eliminate this is to remove GVTs (Option 1) which may not lend itself to much more increased informality if the number of groups is similar to that in this election. Option 2 would be no more onerous than many lower house contest.
Removing GVTs will of itself limit the number of groups, as many are in it hopeful of winning a harvest lottery.
As I have shown by my experiment above, merely limiting the number of preferences a party can lodge on its ticket, may not change the result and exhaust a whole heap of votes.
Ray, you’re thought experiment implies you haven’t the faintest idea of what I’m talking about. You change the preferences rules to try and change party behaviour. So you engage in a thought experiment that is based on ceteris parabis. Get real.
You’re right. I haven’t the faintest idea of what you are talking about, especially when you speak in Latin.
Nor do I hope to hold a candle to your expertise in this area. But I would expect that you would not engage in the occasional put down comment to us mere mortals.
What my experiment does show however is that the parties would not have needed to change their behaviour, if the number of ticket preferences allowed where equivalent to the number of seats available. The result is unchanged under this scenario.
In fact I have extended the experiment to progressively restrict the number of ticket preferences. Only when we limit the number of allowable preferences to 2 does the result change, and all the votes for the Nationals and the DLP exhaust.
Is that a “bridge too far”?
When I look at the preference arrangements, I don’t detect any that were markedly across ideological lines.
Not only will the DLP and National vote exhaust, but also People Power, Country Aliance, Liberals and Family First ie. 47% of the votes will exhaust.
Yes. A bridge too far.
And yes the minor party that takes the cake (the Greens) has more than half a quota.
Do we have any conclusive E met and W vic results yet? If not does anyone know when we will?
Sorry I mean S met not E
No and no.
5pm figures are better for ET
Lib 2.77629 + 0.12782 (FF) + 0.06825 (DLP) = 2.97236
ALP 1.87202 + 0.0815 (PP) + 0.02290 (Rita) = 1.97642
Green 0.94423 + 0.10172 (AD) = 1.045595
ALP + Green surplus = 2.02237
ET’s lead is 1,317 votes
Antony… where are you…. whats the latest in Western Victoria? Is the DLP still in front and what about Northern Metro? Is the ALP in trouble from the DLP?
I think the one thing that may save the Libs in Sth Metro is the below the line votes of PP.
More than two thirds of PP votes are BTL. Mayne’s natural constituancy is small L Liberals. It will be very interesting to see what happens when the VEC press the button on the computer and BING we see where BTL votes go or don’t go in the case of votes that exhaust.
Fascinating to watch. It’s like watching a marathon race where everyone wants first and second but no one wants third.
I thought that the DLP will come up the middle. My analysis which I have broken down more shows it to be a very very close race in Southern Metro. The Greens havinbg topped the ALP surplus has handed the seat to the DLP who in turn had survived the NP and Lib surplus it was a close race.
Three are unlnown issues also with the segmenation and value inflated votes from teh paperbased formula/ I know Antony discounts this issue (Why I fail to understand maybe its as good as his model in predicting Mlebourne being a win for the Greens (The Senente based analysis is still holding its head above water and much more reliable then the 2002 single member profile)/ The key to teh DLP success was a range of factors much of which was first identified by the Speaker in his fortune telling calculator
MelbCity your posts are hard enough to understand as it is but if you’re to start being a bitch as well I won’t bother even trying to read them.
Sorry, long day of other committments. Western Victoria has no changes, except DLP is a further ahead of the Nationals at the key point. Breaking out the BTL votes, Labor remains about 100 behind the Greens, and my guess would be that the Greens will do better on the drift of BTL votes. So, unless the votes remaining to be counted lift the Labor primary vote compared to the Greens, then the totals are pointing to Labor preferences electing the DLP.
South Metro was a good day for the Greens which is a good day for Labor. Greens might be as many as 1,400 votes over the quota when the Democrat ticket goes out, that’s the first ’segment’ that MelbCity keeps on about. Libs have slipped to be 2884 short of a quota, Labor 3826, but will then recieve almost all of the Green surplus, putting them around 2450 short. This is based on about 5,300 BTL votes sloshing around.
Adam.
I was scrutineering in Sandringham yesterday. BTl’s are favouring Sue Pennicuik. Some votes exhausting without going to any of the three candidates that matter. But interestingly John Lenders votes are going to Sue Pennicuik as much as thornley. Labor ticket and Liberal ticket (surprisingly) is leaking to the Greens lead candidate. Even DLP and FF BTLs are going to the Greens evenly. In Postals counted yesterday Libs were way ahead of the ALP (double). Greens were very respectable, but I think Thornley will find it difficult. Left to count postals and absentees from Brighton, Bentleigh and Sandringham. Thornley will find it difficult, If the Greens don’t make quota and surplus.
Gosh what will the ALP say about Greens preferences electing another Labor MP. Would they take all that tripe back?
On another note. What will the impact on Labor be if the DLP gets elected on their preferences? Family First at Federal election and DLP in State on Labor prefs. Poor Bronny will get a lashing in the Gay press.
Ray
How to understand Anthony Green’s Latin, all other things being equal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceteris_parabis
smiles
Disasterboy
Adam I can not reply if I do not uinderstand what you don’t understand. presumably it is the sengameatuion and rules of that apply. The system that is in place is not “proportional” and certianly not one vote one value. The method used to calculate te suplus distorts the value of some votes, Some majopr party ticket votes increase in valu e whilst the BTL secondary preferences increase in value. It bnecause the rules that is appolied is based on the number of ballot papers and not the value attached to the Ballot Paper. Whedn a surplus is transfered all votes carry the same “new” value and it does not matter if some votes (say 10000) were worth 0.1 and others (Say 1000) at 1.0 they all are transfered on at the same revised value…. Its basic maths..
The other issue iof teh segmentation rulkes which were orginal designed to minimise the distortion in the paperbased surplus calculation. (All related to the days of a manual count.)
Southern Metro
Based on the information Antony had listed above and I have not had a chance to review the latest data.. It would look like Labor has managed to secure a healthy lead. The main issue “The point I am bitching about” whether you agree or not is that teh VEC has not porvided anywhere near sufficent information in detail and in a timely fashion as to how many votes have been counted and how many and from where they are still to be counted.It is an auditors nightmare and there is a lack of transparency and accountability as a result. We live in te age of the Interent and more information shouldbe readily available. The VEC has an obligation not just to teh medai to meet their requirments but they have a greater obligation and responsibility to te public. This information should be readily available and opublsihed on the interent and that includes teh polling booth breakdwon of the Upeprhouse ballot. The only reason they parted form the practice of the past is that some on the media did not want this information. Thats fine they can ignore it if they want but the VEC’s obligation is beyond that of the media’s perceived requirements. Polling Booth data shoudlbe available and so should the BTL preference data that is data-entrered into a database.
Its basic really and I do not think it is that hard to grasp…
In Western Victoria, Antony, how far ahead do you now put DLP ahead of FF, and thereafter, DLP ahead of Nationals? It’s looking like these 2 cut off points will be critical.
Barry Cassidy on ABC radio in Sydney yesterday remarked on the possibility the DLP might win a seat in the Victorian Upper House.
I’m still supporting my namesake Mr Thornley(us Evans stick together).
Will there be a recount in Ferntree Gully? A 17 vote margin would seem to necessitate this, surely.
I think I predicted 55 seats for Bracks before the election, so I was right, at least for once.
Hello Dinesh
Do you have actual numbers to attach to the BTL observations?… i.e. number of ballots seen, % this, % that, etc. Such numbers for Dems, PPV and ALP would be very useful. On Tickets alone, ALP currently win 5th spot with a bit of room to spare. I currently have the Greens on a surplus of 2700, which is twice what Antony has (6pm figs perhaps?…. or it might be the dreaded segmentation!).
Just to liven things up, I might mention that it seems like The Greens have pulled narrowly ahead in the count for the last place in Western Metropolitan.
According to the most recent figures from the Victorian Electoral Commission, it looks like the lead Green candidate will be narrowly ahead of the third Labor candidate after distribution of Democrat and People Power preferences, whilst the second Liberal candidate will be short of a quota after DLP and Family First preferences. The upshot is that the Green will be elected ahead of the Liberal on Labor preferences. At least that’s the impression this Brisbane resident gets from inspecting the VEC web site.
Can people closer to the action in Melbourne shed any further light on what’s happening in Western Metropolitan?
There are a number of ironies in the situation:
(a) the Greens’ influence in the new parliament will be diminished rather than increased if Sue Pennicuik continues to gain as the count proceeds;
(b) Sue is a former AMWU and ACTU official, so the Greens have broken Labor’s monopoly on the election of union officials to parliament;
(c) if I’m right about Western Metropolitan, this will mean that 2 of the Greens’ 3 MLCs will be from the two most working class regions in the Upper House.
Another irony is that Colleen Hartland is a former cleaner in Parliament House – now that’s a career trajectory! But I have no idea if it really is looking like Labor will be running third when it’s down to Labor Liberal and Green for the 5th seat in Western Metro. On the figures it does look possible though.
One very rough and ready simulation is to use Dinesh’s flow numbers to subtract the appropriate BTL primaries from #1 of ALP and DLP (FFV doesn’t matter, they won’t get cut up probably) and add them to GRN1. This doesn’t change the final result but it gives the ALP a bigger margin by virtue of raising the TV of the GRN Ticket. But the big killer is still the 2000 PPV BTLs. One would have to suppose that some at least would favour GRN1 over ALP2, this would reduce the ALP’s cushion by devaluing these to the GRN TV. If they ALL did this, the ALP would still be elected, but probably without a quota.
Re Western Metro, it is my understanding that PP are preferencing ALP. If this flow holds, I don’t think the ALP will come in behind the Greens for the 5th seat, and therefore will be elected on Lib prefs. Is this what others think?
A slight correction to my first post and a response to Brian.
In Western Metro it looks like the Greens lead candidate will sneak ahead of the fourth (not the third) Labor candidate. Simply going by the tickets and the latest VEC figures, the Labor candidate will have 10.1% with PP preferences, and the Green will have 10.38% with Democrat preferences. The second Liberal will be on 12.87% after DLP and FF preferences. The Labor candidate will then go out and their preferences elect the Green.
could people please make it clear when they post which seat they are talking about?
Paul, that’s not right in Western Metro. The DLP have split the candidates, so their ticket goes 10th preference to the first Liberal Bernie Finn, then 11 to Labor’s fourth candidate Henry Barlow, then the rest of the Liberal ticket. So when Family First go out, the DLP preferences flow to Labor not the Liberals. That puts Labor ahead of the Greens with some ease.
Geoff, I have a smaller surplus on the Greens because MelbCity is correct. The Victorian count has a variant on the Senate count that the Democrats primary vote will go out and put the Green over the quota, but any BTL votes received by the Democrats as preferences go in the second bundle, by which stage the Green will have been elected and cannot receive more preferences. I think you’ll find that’s why I have a smaller surplus. I’m only calculating on ticket votes from minor parties.
Re West Metro, It looks like Barlow will win the last seat ahead of the Greens by .5% once all the vote is counted. While this doesn’t take into account all the BLT’s this seems a big enough margin not to matter.
And does anyone know how much of the vote is left to come in?
Brian, In Western Victoria, the key point is DLP ahead of Nationals and the DLP has increased that on every count this week. Perhaps there will be a big whack of postals from a seat contested by the NATs to reverse this, but we don’t know the source so you just have to wait. But the NATs have been slipping all week, which has been a slight surprise to me.
Just doing a ticket only calculation in Western Met, Labor is 2,000 ahead on guaranteed tickets with about 3,000 BTLs in play. On the current %’s, the Greens couldn’t close that gap. It would require a shift in %s with the vote to be counted, but it’s getting a bit late in the count for that. All the shifts in South Metro, with a lower count, have been in the order of a few hundred, not 2,000.
Antony, thanks for drawing my attention to the nuances of DLP preferences in Western Metro. Barlow will win unless there are a lot of polling day absent votes still to be counted, as Greens do very well and Labor less well in this category of votes. In the 2002 State election Greens candidates’ final vote was typically between half a per cent and one per cent higher than their vote at the close of counting on election night, largely on the strength of polling day absents.
Well, they need a full 0.5% and its there’s more than three-quarters of the declaration vote already counted. Not sure there’s enough left to come to close that gap.
Geoff, I have a smaller surplus on the Greens because MelbCity is correct. The Victorian count has a variant on the Senate count that the Democrats primary vote will go out and put the Green over the quota
Errrr….. yes, that’s what I’m doing too. The way my crunching works out is that prior to the exclusion DEM have
, but any BTL votes received by the Democrats as preferences go in the second bundle, by which stage the Green will have been elected and cannot receive more preferences. I think you’ll find that’s why I have a smaller surplus. I’m only calculating on ticket votes from minor parties.
Any thoughts when all the uncertainty will be resolved? Feel a bit sorry for the candidates whose futures are blowing in the wind.
On that basis I’d say Barlow’s in.
On a more general point, the flip side of the Green vote improving as absents, postals, etc., are counted is that the Green vote on election night will understate the eventual Green vote by a non-trivial amount. The problem for the Greens is that most media commentary on how well or badly a given party may have done is based on the election night figures – as indeed are many of the media and popular myths about who did well or badly in the election, and why. By the time the results are finalised (some weeks later) the media has largely lost interest, and only professional political wonks take an interest in the election studies (such as the Australian Election/Referendum Studies) which come out some months later.
Thus, we have seen a pattern of media commentary about Green “flops” in recent Federal and State elections, based on election night figures, which was not subsequently corrected when final results showed that the Greens had done reasonably well. For example:
* The claims on the Monday after the 2004 Federal election that the Greens had fallen 250,000 votes short of Bob Browns prediction of “one million votes”, which was not corrected when the Green vote subsequently rose to 920,000 in later counting.
* The claims about the Greens losing one and possibly two of their four seats in the most recent Tasmanian election based on election night figures, which provided the evidentiary basis for much gloating commentary in the Murdoch press which was not recanted when the Greens retained all four seats in the final count.
* The claim by one Age journalist that the Greens “flopped” in the Victorian state election on the basis that their vote on election night was lower than their overall 2002 vote – a claim which I don’t expect to be recanted now that the Green vote has increased over 2002 in later counting.
* One lazy hack in the Australian (I forget who) writing in an op-ed piece that the Greens had not increased their Senate representation in the 2004 election, when they had doubled it from 2 to 4.
I confess to having something of a professional interest in this issue. I have had an article published in the latest Australian Journal of Political Science which contests, I think on a sound evidentiary basis, much of what has since become the received wisdom about the 2004 Federal election.
I have been following this blog closely but some of the technical discussion is now getting beyond me! Would appreciate a thursday arvo update as to probable winners in western metro, southern metro and western victoria.
Paul – as an example of particularly lazy journalism, I remember a large article on the popularity of Jim Bacon in the Australian once – part of the evidence for his popularity was supposedly that the ALP had won 13 seats in the 1998 state election and 14 in the next. Of course, it won 14 in both elections (in ‘98, it was 14 ALP, 10 Lib, 1 Grn – in 2002, it was 14 ALP, 7 Lib and 4 Grn). I wrote to the editor but there was no reply, unsurprisingly. I mean, any political junkie knows these results, and the journo couldn’t even run it past anyone who knew.
Geoff, I’m excluding the Democrat BTL votes in calculating the Green surplus. Only the 900 votes for the first candidate would be in the first bundle, the other 300 Democrat primary in the second bundle as they were for the second and third Democrat candidate. Quite a few of these 900 would flow to the Green, whioch would increase the surplus but I’m not factoring them in. If you are factoring in BTL’s flowing to the Greens, remeber any that leak to the Greens that go through the Democrats will not in fact get to the Greens.
On 6 Dec 5:53pm figures, quota is 58901. Greens total vote (assuming no BTL leakage) is 55617, + DEM ticket 4757 = 60374, surplus of 1473. The minusses on this are any Green BTL’s lost, the plusses any BTLs gained from other parties, plus any of the 923 Kavanagh (Dem) BTL votes. That increases the Green surplus. As the Green would be elected at this point, the Green surplus cannot include any BTL preferences from Kavagh that were originally for the other two Democrats, or for any other candidate on the ballot.
I’m having a bad hair day today, pressing the Submit too early, then losing the correction.
But, in reply to Antony, my cut-up of the DEM producing a surplus for the GRN only involves the primaries of both. The gist of the lost message was that we must be starting the DEM cut-up with different starting values…. I can’t easily allow for BTLs of 2,3,4,5 candiates to leak away, so I just hypothesise that they are similar to Tickets.
But now I see how Antony does it (above). That’s a rather cool approach, would probably be the safest one when BTLs are all over the shop.
Re Western Vic, thanks Antony. It also seems to me that FF are close to overhauling the DLP at an earlier cut. If that were to happen, the Greens wd win if they stayed head of the ALP. Assuming the figures are as on the VEC website, DLP win, but I guess the BTL unknowns make that still uncertain when the margins are so close. There are not many votes between FF/DLP and DLP/Nat. Added to that, the Greens and Labor are close. Am I a fuddy duddy, or am I entitled to the view that this count is taking an inordinately long time? Have they got all the votes into the one room?
So where abouts are we now if someone would like to comment on Western Vic and Southern? (had day off yesterday for the wiggles)
Imagine a room full of all the votes and suddenly a window opens, blowing the votes all around – some out the window! Now there’s a court case!
Fancy that Sacha on the anniversary of pearl harbour. Ka-boom
Upper House counts are always slow. They used to allow 6 weeks for the NSW Senate before computerisation of the count. They have it down to about 3-4 weeks now. The delay used to be the tedious distribution of preferences. Now the delay is data entry of the BTL votes. Unusually, there is heavy scrutineering in South Metro region, which is slowing the count. Normaly upper house counts whizz by without much scrutineering because everyone has worked out the result. This time its close so there is scrutineering, everyone taking a good look at the ballot before data entry.
# Sacha Says:
December 7th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Imagine a room full of all the votes and suddenly a window opens, blowing the votes all around – some out the window! Now there’s a court case!
Stuff Happens
April 1999…. huge hailstorm hits the Rosebery SEO counting warehouse (NSW), punches through the plastic roof and destroys innumerable ballots stacked on the trestle tables underneath. Then it rains and on all those ballots where the voter has used her water-soluble ink pen, all the numbers blurred…..
Luckily, most had already been counted.
Or the Tasmanian state electorate of Bass in 1929. Under Hare-Clark, all ballot papers are retained for by-elections which are conducted by re-count. However all the ballots were lost in a flood, and then a vacancy occurred. Fortunately, only one candidate nominated.
3pm update. Position in Western Vic almost unchanges, with the DLP staying ahead of Family First and the Nationals, and the Greens still just ahead of Labor by around 130 votes.
Southern metro sees a tiny improvement for the Greens and for Labor.
Not many votes counted in either. Looks like they’ve been going through and putting in the E-Centre votes.
so the final count is looking something like 20 Labor 1DLP 2GRN and 17 for ‘coalition’ ?
I’ve updated the distributions at the ABC elections website.
The Democrats decision to only lodge one GVT in Southern Metro, contrary to past practise and what they did in three of the other seats they ran in, could turn out to be quite crucial. Anyone know why they did this?
¿Que?
The vote in WMet has gone down. Not by much (224), a minor adjustment of trim perhaps. No change in the result of course.
Things were much easier in the old days. At Old Sarum, there were five voters (none of whom lived in the borough, which was uninhabited), who nominated two MPs from among their own relatives. At Dunwich, the town had fallen into the sea and the nominal landowners (seaowners?) elected the MPs at their London club. At Sutherlandshire, the Duke of Sutherland owned the entire county and nominated the MP himself. At Grampound the MP took corruption to its logical conclusion: he bought all the voters for five pounds each and elected himself.
Guys. I have updated my count sheets last night. It wilol show you how close teh result is I ahave also included an analysis of teh BTL vote but I am not sure if it will come into effect for Southeren metro.
I need to update for todays counting.
But will do that later. When I am back at home. Currently in an internet cafe in Istanbul.
http://melbcity.topcities.com
I also have teh DLP ahead again in Western Victioria and with over 90% of teh vite counted I do not think it will change. The NP needs to climb ahead of the DLP which is unlikely at this stage I think. Again I need to look at todays results. Some of you might be familar at looking at the count sheet. It shows a partical segmenation which is important to take into considereation when teh elections are tight.
Anthony
Watch out you don’t get segmented by the Turks – they are very segmentimental people. And don’t lose your passport this time.
OK. My upload just completed. Enjoy!!
Anthony
I di not lose it last time. It was stolen. But thanks for your help.
I was wondering about the Democrats decision also. I still find the information or lack there of provided by the VEC appalling. There is a lot they can do to improve on their system. Publishing polling place details and return statistics would help. I am concerned that because of their stupid secrecy (It protects their technocratic position I guess). Information is the key to understanding the system and hopefully improving it.
I was thinking more about the segmentation and optional preferential voting and the more I think about it the more I think a reiterative count would be best. every time a candidate is excluded the count is reset and the counted again (In cyberspace) with provision for bulk exclusion where the aggregate does not effect the position of the subsequent candidate. This would automatically adjust the quota and account for exhausted votes.
SMET simulation
Using Dinesh’s scrutineered GRN-favouring leaks of various parties’ BTLs (except for PPV, which I had to guess that 30% might not go to ALP before GRN), it is possible to set up a simlated cut-up with the “notional tickets thus created, while still utilising the same number of primaries (¿Que?)
Anyway, believe me that it has worked in the past in such tricky situations, although sometimes I had to create 8 different patterns of BTL flows for some Groups.
Anyway again, doing this for SMET still produces the same result of LIB ALP LIB GRN ALP, with a final ALP surplus of 1375.
Geoff keep in mind though this was either Brighton, Sandringham or Bentleigh booths (I suspect Sandringham or Brighton). So can’t comment on other postals etc.
I gather from comments that Western Met has become uncompetitive…. what was the final result and by how much?
I can’t believe it we’ve done it again FF then DLP. Whoever works out these voting tickets should be shot.
Are there any changes to the situations in S.Met and W.Vic? In particular, do we know anything about BTL votes?
On 6.12 Ray commented:
“If West VIC goes to the DLP, assuming ET gets up in SMET, then if the ALP want to legislate to the right, they have the DLP option. If they want to legislate to the left, they team with the Greens. Sounds like a smart choice, and much better than being a slave of the left with the Greens holding the BoP”
This is nonsense. If the Greens and/or DLP have the BoP, then they must share it with the Libs and Nats too. So if the ALP want to legislate to the right, there are plenty of options on that side of the chamber. People who claim a Bracks govt will be slave to the Greens if the greens get the BoP dishonestly ignore the fact that 21 votes are required to pass legislation. if the greens dare to insist on inappropriate amendments to legislation then the ALP can always get their bills passed with Nat or Lib support, because they too hold the BoP. The major parties like to scare everyone with claims that minor parties will take control of the state, when in fact power will always remain with the major parties because 2 major parties can always pass legislation without any input from the minors.
The more perties the more options to negotaige agreement. Best noty top be hand to ransom by teh Greens. No one party holds the balance. This is good. lthough I would expect that the DLP will causus with the NP and Liberal Party
Melbcity, what ransom? Labor/Liberal combine together 80% of the time. That is rubbish Labor politikspeak.
The scary thing for Labor is, when the swing happens against Labor, there are about 3-4 seats that might swing the Greens way. These seats have never been a potential loss for the ALP. now it’s a slow burn. It also distracts the ALP in having to attack another party than the Libs.
Now for the NSW election where there probably will be a swing away from the ALP.
By the way, Adam, it looks like the 10% ceiling you predicted for the Greens has been already broken by counting of absentees/postals and pre-polls.
We don’t know that the DLP will actually get up in Western Vic yet do we?
If they do, then at last we will be able to get reality instead of myth about what they stand for, and that will be revealed in who they team up with on different matters, eg. no doubt with ALP on industrial relations, Greens on some environmental matters, bargain with Libs on some minor issues etc.
For those with memory or who read history instead of repeating myth:
we have to admit the DLP were the first to push for an end of the White Australia policy and they had to beat the conservatives about the ears to get their way, while unfortunately ALP was last to respond;
and they were first to move on environment and equal pay for equal work.
We will have to wait and see if they win a spot, and then if they choose to be as creative as they were, or whether they oblige the myth makers and mold themselves to the stereo type, which would be convenient but a loss to Vic.
Dear Lloyd Labor, interested that you say DLP was first to move on the environment. I have not heard this claim before. What historical event or stand does this refer to? All the best.
Brian,
I cannot confirm that the DLP was the first party to promote the environment, but I can give evidence that it did so early in the piece.
In August 1974, the Central Executive adopted a new statement of principles. I proposed the environmental one, which read:
‘The protection and conservation of the natural environment and the planned use of natural resources in recognition of the close relationship between man and nature and the finite nature of the earth’s resources.’
In the statement of principles at the head of the DLP’s environment policy was the following:
‘The Democratic Labor Party believes that the world environmental crisis arises from:
o The affluent society’s abandonment of the virtue of frugality;
o The continuance of too much of the attitude of “taming the wilderness†coupled with insufficient appreciation of the value of unique flora and fauna; and
o A failure to recognise the interdependence of men and nature.’ (The DLP Looks Ahead, 1/5/1977)
The policy went on to call for such things as 5 per cent of the country to be national parks, taxes on environmentally damaging products, research into solar energy, fusion energy, etc. No doubt, it would be found wanting 30 years after it was written, but it was a serious attempt to face environmental degradation at the time.
The Victorian DLP records (and thus pre-Split ALP records) are available at the State Library.
Thanks, Chris. Lloyd may have had something further in mind, but reflecting on the DLP principles set out above: whilst few would criticise these principles, August 1974 came after years of the environment being a major issue. This was 2 years after the flooding of Lake Pedder, which had caused the United Tasmania Group (the world’s first Green party) to be formed, it was 2 years after the election of the Whitlam government, on which Moss Cass as Minister for the Environment had been working tirelessly and prominently for the environment, and it was also some time on from Dick Hamer becoming premier of Victoria, his government featuring protection of the environment and expansion of the national parks system. But if the DLP are successful in Western Victoria it would be good if they adhered to these principles.
Brian,
I have done some more research on the claim by Lloyd Labor that the DLP was the first political party to promote the environment. I still cannot say if this claim is true, but I can quote the following:
‘The lungs through which Melbourne breathes will be destroyed, and Melbourne will suffocate as these magnificent rural and seaside areas become built-up red brick…All of the millions spent on freeways do nothing but provide temporary relief to road congestion. Air pollution, although it has not reached the disease-ridden proportions of some American and Asian cities, is ever on the rise with its threat to the health of individuals and families.’ (Hon. Jack Little, The Policy for the Democratic Labor Party for the Victorian Elections April 29, 1967, 10/4/1967)
(In the same speech, Jack Little committed the DLP to a legal maximum class size of 30 pupils. This may not sound much today, but this is in 1967 when classes of 40 were not unusual.)
I can also quote this:
‘The threat of massive oil pollution is real and is provided by the presence of the major oil refineries on the shores of Port Philip Bay and Westernport Bay…The D.L.P. is strongly of the opinion that when private enterprise is allowed to develop industry, provision for town planning, provision for effluent water treatment plant, planning for air pollution control, analysis of traffic requirements and control of sound, are inescapable parts of the total bill, and must be provided for in the original estimates….Victoria should immediately appoint a Director of Air Pollution Control…’ (Frank Dowling, We’ll keep the Government Honest, The Policy of the Democratic Labor Party for the Victorian State Elections, May, 1970, 6/5/1970) (We now know the origin of the Democrats’ well-known slogan.)
(In the same speech, Frank Dowling called for the mandatory reporting of child abuse. How many years did we have to wait for that to happen?)
None of this shows that the DLP was the first party to promote the environment, but it does show that the environment was an issue of concern to the DLP forty years ago. I will now leave it to Lloyd Labor to prove his case.
If they are so exuberantly supportive of environmental issues, I would expect DLP to place the Greens somewhere other than last on their upper house ticket. The fact is the DLP is more interested in opposing gays than it is in creating a just and environmentlaly sustainable world.
Well, there we are: the DLP have taken two seats. No one picked that. The Greens took 2 seats with more than 4 times their vote (it might be more than 5 times) and the DLP didn’t really campaign, so it is an amazing result.
Labor do not control the Council.
Interesting that the Nationals did so badly in the upper house, completely failing in Western Vic, where they put in a lot of resources.
One lesson for the psephologists is that where minor parties are vying for the 5th seat in these upper house elections, it is too simple to look at who can garner more than half of a quota and predict a win by them. It all boils down to preference flows. Mackerras and others were picking several Green seats, even though the Greens did not at any stage predict this (they predicted one). Even after the voting, we were all in the dark for a period of weeks, even on this blog, and it just goes to show how uncertain this process is for those who are not in the big parties.
The time delay also means that election night pronouncements on how the minor parties have fared are fraught with danger, and are unlikely to fully reflect the outcome.
My thanks to those who contributed to this blog, which I have found particularly interesting. Special thanks to Antony Green for his expert analysis as figures permitted.
Now let’s see how our elected representatives perform over the next four years.