Comments on: Tasmanian Legislative Council elections live

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Tue, 05 May 2009 07:58:29 +0000

3500-odd words of analysis here: http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/the-legislative-council-wash-up/

Like Possum minus the graphs, and with far less statistical rigour because I’m so lazy. Highly recommended … at least as a cure for insomnia. Not suitable for opponents of the Bell Bay pulp mill with histories of depression or proneness to the wish-fulfillment school.

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Sun, 03 May 2009 08:35:27 +0000

Oh, I echo the congrats to the TEO; their standards are normally high but in this case they have outdone themselves.

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Sun, 03 May 2009 08:14:34 +0000

That is a strong performance by Dean to get almost 40% of Whish-Wilson’s preferences, or perhaps more to the point, a weak performance by Hay to let him. I was expecting high 20s – low 30s. Exhaust at almost 5% was, as I expected, higher than normal for this sort of contest, but Dean won so easily it didn’t go near mattering. Unless the anti-mill vote was really down and Whish-Wilson’s rather good vote included a high personal vote component unrelated to his politics, it is hard not to see some kind of message in this – Hay not campaigning hard enough and Green voters seeing not enough reason to toss the incumbent.

By: William Bowe

William Bowe — Sun, 03 May 2009 07:35:47 +0000

And Dean wins Windermere 55-45.

By: William Bowe

William Bowe — Sun, 03 May 2009 07:20:37 +0000

Gaffney wins Mersey 60-40 over Martin.

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Sun, 03 May 2009 06:25:10 +0000

Yes I was giving a net total of changes from rechecking before noticing that these included addition of provisional and absent votes, so Hay lost votes from GT and then gained some back on absent and provisional.

Distribution of preferences is happening now – quite rapidly in fact. Sands split in favour of Whish-Wilson with more to Dean than Hay and Kaye’s went more to Dean than Hay or Whish-Wilson (no huge surprise in the latter).

Hay now needs 81% of Whish-Wilson’s preferences assuming zero exhaust. There will be some and I’ll be fascinated to see how much or little there actually is.

The impression I get is that the hardline anti-pulp-millers have generally voted for Whish-Wilson with just a small minority voting for Sands.

By: William Bowe

William Bowe — Sun, 03 May 2009 06:08:35 +0000

Thanks for the correction on the Greens candidate in 2003, Kevin. My reading of the change in the votes in Windermere is different from your own. It seems that Hay has been docked 101 votes from the George Town booth, whereas the adjustments to Dean’s totals have all been very minor. We’ve also had provisional and absent votes added, which have given 54 votes to Dean and 57 to Hay. Does any of that sound wrong to you?

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Sun, 03 May 2009 05:45:05 +0000

Rechecked figures posted at 2:45pm show Dean has gained 49 votes in rechecking while Hay has lost 50. Kaye, Sands and Whish-Wilson have gained 120, 3 and 214 respectively. As a net result, Dean’s position has improved slightly.

Re Derwent, the Greens are not a new entry – Aird’s opponent in 2003 was a Green, although I don’t believe party affiliation was listed on the ballot paper then. The new entry is the tokenly non-Liberal Branch.

My prediction in #21 came true; Sunday Tasmanian refers to “scare from Branch” (nonsense) and “swing of almost 26 percentage points” (irrelevant), but also draws a comparison with Aird polling 58% in a field of three in 1997. Aird explains that that was a different election compared with this one being “effectively Liberal, Labor and Green”, which is true, but doesn’t explain why his figures are so down on what Labor polled in this seat in 2006. Seems like Aird is putting a lot of positive spin on what is actually a pretty unimpressive result.

Sunday Tasmanian also quotes Peter Tucker saying numerous sensible things so at least those who read to the end of the articles will get a fair picture instead of just the silly headlines.

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Sat, 02 May 2009 13:33:47 +0000

Recheck followed by provisional distribution tomorrow afternoon and evening. Excellent!

“A provisional distribution of preferences will commence on Sunday afternoon after the recheck is completed. If possible, a result will be determined on Sunday afternoon or evening, however if close, the outcome may not be known for some days until final postal votes are received.”

By: Kevin Bonham

Kevin Bonham — Sat, 02 May 2009 11:43:04 +0000

Even Ivan Dean will get Green preferences, though he may not get very many of them.

Kaye has Lib connections in the past and is a single-issue candidate while Sands and Dean are on the same council, so there will be some flow to Dean from these factors.

Donkey and partial donkey voting should lead to a small amount of spray all over the shop.

I wonder if Dean and Hay had scrutineers in the booths sampling preferences?