Comments on: Pembroke and Nelson live

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Thu, 17 May 2007 12:29:34 +0000

The gripping battle for third saw Smith outlast Zucco by a whopping two (2) votes following which Ritchie was elected during Zucco’s preferences. Ritchie finished with 51.46% to James’ 31.18 and Smith’s 17.36. We don’t know where Smith’s preferences went but assuming they may have gone slightly more to James than to Ritchie it might be that the 2PP result would have been around 58:42. If so that would be about a four-point swing to Ritchie, but one attributable in my view mainly to having lower-profile opponents than the sitting member she defeated last time.

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Thu, 10 May 2007 06:24:03 +0000

There is some rather amusing media waffle going on involving the very close contest between Smith and Zucco to see who will be eliminated on preferences. (Whichever one is eliminated will then elect Ritchie leaving the other to come third without being distributed). At first Zucco led by seven votes and currently it is tied, with a further 50 or so votes to be added that may yet break the deadlock. If it is still tied I believe Zucco will be eliminated on countback as he was behind Smith at the previous exclusion.

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Thu, 10 May 2007 06:20:13 +0000

Tom Nilsson made an identical post on Tasmanian Times and I quote my reply from there:

“Tom (#35), I didnâ€™t see that many Wilkinson posters; in the parts of the electorate I passed through I thought he had marginally less than you (even though there were some common Green sites where you didnâ€™t have posters). I didnâ€™t see anything like as many posters from anyone as I remember seeing last time.

I donâ€™t see why you say I didnâ€™t give you credit when I did! In post 28 I described your result as â€œrather goodâ€. Both you and your party did well in this seat and should be pleased with your result. Itâ€™s not that easy to compare it to previous results in this seat as the Greens have never finished second in it before (in Queenborough 1995 Gerry Bates was second on primaries but was narrowly overtaken by Jane Goodluck on preferences and excluded while sitting in third with 28%). However in the adjacent seat of Wellington, the best Greens two-party preferred result was 40.5% in 2000 (Trish Moran) and last year Marette Corbyâ€™s 2PP result against Doug Parkinson was 37.4%. “

By: Tom Nilsson

Tom Nilsson — Tue, 08 May 2007 00:41:54 +0000

Kevin

I take issue with your comment that “the relative closeness of Nelson can be put down largely to the relatively token campaign by the safe sitting member.”

Jim Wilkinson certainly put in more than a token effore into his campaign. He had a very large number of posters up (probably more than me) and he had several fairly large advertisements in the newspaper. He also made sure he got a lot of media coverage (something which was far more difficult for me).

Given Jim Wilkinson had all the advantages of incumbency and twelve years holding Nelson, while this was my first election campaign, I thought I did reasonable well. Perhaps, Kevin you could give me a little credit for my efforts, as well as the Tasmanian Greens.

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Sun, 06 May 2007 08:36:38 +0000

Preliminary distribution of preferences shows votes of Jackson favouring James and Peers, and votes of Peers favouring James, and both favouring Ritchie, Zucco, Smith after that. Smith’s performance on preferences is sufficiently poor that he may be overtaken by Zucco in the cutup (Zucco currently leads that race by seven). Not at all a bad result for Zucco given he is off his home turf. As I predicted on TT we will not get a 2PP figure as Ritchie will be elected with James and either Smith or Zucco still remaining.

If Smith is excluded the split of his preferences will be particularly useful information for the future.

By: The Speaker

The Speaker — Sun, 06 May 2007 02:38:08 +0000

Thanks guys.

By: Peter Tucker

Peter Tucker — Sat, 05 May 2007 10:55:43 +0000

It is unusual for the primary vote leader to be overtaken during the cut up, but it does happen. Here http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/tpl/Elections/Macquarie1998.htm in the old seat of Macquarie, Russell Anderson was elected after finishing (just) second on primaries.

Anyone keen enough could click through all the Leg Council outcomes here http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/tpl/Elections/lcresult.htm to find other examples.

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Sat, 05 May 2007 10:44:43 +0000

It’s not that common for primary vote leaders to lose but it does happen. By my count there have been six cases since 1980 where the primary vote leader didn’t win, and in one of these (Ross Ginn winning Newdegate in 1986) the winner was actually third on primaries. The most recent case was Russell Anderson overtaking Jacqui Murphy in Macquarie, 1998 and the one before that was Doug Parkinson overtaking Jean Moore in Hobart, 1994.

By: The Speaker

The Speaker — Sat, 05 May 2007 10:08:27 +0000

I once looked through a number of Tasmanian LC counts, and didn’t find a single instance where someone caught the primary vote leader on preferences.

There may have been instances, but I couldn’t find any.

(It was a long time ago and late, so I could be really really wrong here)

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Sat, 05 May 2007 10:01:13 +0000

Nelson’s done for the night too; it’s 61:39 and an easy record high Green vote for a Legislative Council seat. These two-candidate races are very tricky to predict and my pre-campaign guess of 69:31 is feeling pretty sorry for itself.