New South Wales: Antony Green notes that the crucial factor in the Greens’ failure to win the final seat over Labor was Democrats preferences – although they favoured the Greens over Labor, the Greens never received them as Fred Nile had been favoured over them both, and he eventually overtook the Greens to make it to the final round. On the primary vote, the Coalition scored 3.08 quotas, Labor 2.54 and the Greens 0.51. In past elections the Greens could have felt reasonably confident that preferences would close their small deficit over Labor’s surplus, but such were the preference tickets that their vote remained stuck as the cast of micro and minor parties was progressively eliminated. Most remarkable was the success of Glenn Druery of Liberals for Forests in building upon a primary vote base of a mere 0.04 quotas to overtake One Nation (0.13 quotas) and the Democrats (0.15 quotas), devouring the preferences of each in turn and making it through to the final rounds along with Labor, the Greens and Fred Nile (0.18 quotas on the primary vote, compared with a mere 0.04 for Family First). The distribution of the various votes that Druery had absorbed by this point pushed Fred Nile ahead of both Labor and the Greens; since the Greens had fallen further behind Labor by this point, this meant the distribution of their preferences decided the final place in Labor’s favour. Note the Poll Bludger’s cautious pre-election talk of whether the Coalition can "maintain its primary vote at or near the 41.5 per cent it recorded in 2001" – they in fact increased it to 43.9 per cent.

Victoria: Many who had been relaxed about the democratic shortcomings of above-the-line voting after Pauline Hanson failed to win a Queensland seat in 2001 with 10.0 per cent of the vote became suddenly very alarmed when the Greens missed out here with 8.7 per cent. Admittedly, on this occasion there was the further aggravation that Family First succeeded from a mere 1.8 per cent, which compared unfavourably with the party’s performances in South Australia (3.9 per cent), Queensland (3.3 per cent) and Tasmania (2.3 per cent). Key to the result was the preference deals Labor and Democrats struck with Family First in the expectation that they would be the ultimate beneficiaries, which failed to transpire due to their own dismal performances. Boosted by preferences from various micro-parties, Family First overtook the Democrats to become the beneficiaries of their mutual preference deal, which was enough to put their candidate ahead of Labor’s Jacinta Collins due to their feeble 37.8 per cent primary vote. All of which disproved the Poll Bludger’s assertion that a potential Family First seat would most likely come at the expense of the Coalition, who in fact polled a resounding 45.8 per cent to score an easy three quotas on the primary vote.

Queensland: Even more so than Victoria, Queensland provided the Senate election with its greatest astonishment, the Coalition winning four seats in one state for the first time since six-seat half-Senate elections became the norm in 1990. Antony Green calculates that if the Coalition had run a joint ticket, for which the National Party had been agitating, a fourth seat would not have been possible and either One Nation or the Greens would have been elected in their place. The issue was ultimately decided by the 1.3 per cent vote for the Fishing Party, whose preferences (when restricted to realistic contenders) had gone firstly to One Nation, then to the National Party, and then to Hanson. That meant the key factor in the count was Pauline Hanson’s success in narrowly maintaining her lead over One Nation despite unfavourable preference tickets, which she owed to her strong performance on below-the-line preferences. Since One Nation were eliminated first, the Fishing Party vote then moved on to the Nationals which ensured they stayed ahead of Hanson. If Hanson had gone first, the Fishing Party votes would have remained with One Nation who might have got their nose in front of the Nationals on Hanson’s preferences. One Nation would as ever have been starved for further preferences, allowing the Greens to win the seat with the preferences of either the Liberal and Nationals candidate, whichever of the two ended up being eliminated. Instead it was the elimination of Pauline Hanson that decided which of the finely poised Liberal, Nationals and Greens candidates won the final two places, the Greens predictably coming off the worst. One other surprise was that the Nationals ended up winning the fifth seat rather than sixth, overtaking the Liberals due to the considerable number of Pauline Hanson’s below-the-line votes that went against the ticket by favouring the Nationals ahead of the Liberals.

Western Australia: The only state the Poll Bludger called correctly. Most of the Greens’ quota came from three sources – 0.56 quotas from the primary vote; the 0.28 surplus over the second quota from a poorly performing Labor; and the Democrats’ 0.14 quotas, which also went to the Greens ahead of the major parties. With 0.8 per cent of the vote, Family First were not in a position to benefit from the Democrats preference deal. An excellent result for the Liberals, who scored 49.1 per cent of the primary vote.

South Australia: The key to the outcome here was the preference deal between the Democrats and Family First, which allowed Family First to overtake the Greens with their preferences and then consolidate with the Liberals’ considerable surplus over the third quota from their 47.1 per cent primary vote. That left the preferences the Greens needed locked up with Family First, who remained until the final count. At the point of their elimination the Democrats trailed Family First by 0.25 of a quota to 0.30 – had they finished ahead, preferences from Family First and then the Liberals would have delivered them the seat.

Tasmania: Only in Tasmania, where fewer candidates combined with habits formed at state elections produce a below-the-line voting rate of nearly 20 per cent, is there a serious likelihood that the final result will differ from what would have occurred had all votes been above-the-line. In this case Family First’s Jacquie Petrusma would have won the final seat if it weren’t for below-the-line voters favouring the Greens, who as usual had done very poorly on the preference tickets. Otherwise, the Greens’ Christine Milne would have remarkably failed despite scoring a 0.93 quota on the primary vote, which had a typically optimistic Bob Brown claiming premature victory on election night. An apology is due to Labor-turned-independent Senator Shayne Murphy who did rather better than the Poll Bludger dismissively suggested, recording 2.2 per cent of the vote and making it to the final counts.

The count in Queensland has been a bit of wild ride over the past week, and the final result will not be processed until Thursday. The Nationals had long had their neck just in front of One Nation at a crucial point of the count where they would be able to overrun the Greens on preferences if they held on. But on Friday there was what Antony Green described as "a dramatic change to the count" suggesting they had "counted something quite specific which had caused that change". The result was to put One Nation ahead of the Nationals, which would mean victory for the Greens since One Nation had been frozen out on preferences by all and sundry. Since then however the trend has gone back the other way, but Geoff Lambert reports that a "big parcel" of below-the-line votes added today gives One Nation "a whisker more than the Nats (by 40!) – based on the tickets, of course". Another correspondent, Chris Maltby, says that "it’s certainly swung back in (Greens candidate) Drew Hutton’s favour, but I reckon One Nation are still behind the Nats by 650 or so". If all voters had gone above-the-line this lead would be about 2500, suggesting a number of minor party below-the-line voters were specifically putting the major parties (or perhaps the Coalition in particular) last. Maltby also notes that One Nation will need all of Pauline Hanson’s preferences to threaten the Nationals, whereas her below-the-line voters might not have any specific attachment to the party she has since abandoned.

Only in Tasmania does the outcome remain entirely unclear, with below-the-line votes to determine whether the final seat is won by Family First or the Greens. Antony Green does not share the Poll Bludger’s previously expressed sentiment that the Liberals had "blundered" by not fielding a fourth candidate when they won more than three quotas: "If it was not their original intention, someone in the Liberal Party will be claiming great foresight in standing only three candidates. The result is that a full 0.29 of a quota goes straight to Family First rather than lingering with a fourth Liberal candidate". One possible scenario that might have unfolded had this not occurred is that the fourth Liberal would have knocked out Family First, whose preferences could have put incumbent Labor-turned-independent Senator Shayne Murphy into contention. Certainly it does not appear, as suggested earlier, that the Liberals might have been a chance to win the seat themselves.

Further bad news for Labor with the latest House of Representatives figures. The Australian Electoral Commission has removed Wakefield from the doubtfuls, with Liberal David Fawcett leading Labor member Martyn Evans by 0.62 per cent. And a seat that was formerly marked down as a Labor gain – Larry Anthony’s north coast seat of Richmond – has moved back into the doubtful column with a thud, Anthony now trailing by just 0.02 per cent.

(In 2001) 24% of all votes were cast below the line. It ranged from about 13% for the big parties up to 57% for The Greens (one candidate, Bob Brown). But this figure for The Greens is biased by Brown in 2001. In other years, it’s been about 25%. These figures may or may not be repeated in 2004 – probably they will, especially since the ballot paper was so small this time around.

75% of below-the line votes show ‘1′ for the #1 candidate (i.e. for candidates on top of the party lists). The latter is important, because the ‘1′ for #1 votes from the booths are ALREADY in the count … only the below-the-lines for postal/prepoll and the below-the-lines for #2,3,4 candidates have yet to show up on the system. On this basis, I would expect that the Greens #2 and #3 are carrying about 25% of 25% of 13% of the vote, i.e. about 0.8% of the state total. That will bring (Greens candidate) Christine Milne up to about 13.6%, which is still not enough. And 0.8% is probably an overestimate because it will be dragged down by the same sorts of things happening in other parties, although to a lesser extent.

On the other hand, there could be leakage from the #1 to #4 candidates of other groups. This is known to happen in the Tasmanian House of Assembly, where a lot of people voted (e.g.) 1 Robin Gray, 2 Christine Milne (and vice-versa). It is hard to know how many, but at least in this category it is potentially enough. The below-the-line for (ALP+LIB) will be about 15% of 80% = 12% of the total votes cast. Milne will need to pick up a leakage of only about 15% of these to creep up to a quota. It is at least arguable that a number of these people were peeved with the decision by everyone to preference Family First ahead of the Greens and so would hop over to the Greens early on in their papers (they have to go to Greens by preference 2 or 3 of the majors of course). That this sort of thing can swing a result was seen here in my local Council election, where the leading group lost almost half a quota through such a process.

There is little hope for Milne to gain on the postals and pre-polls. What has been counted so far shows her going backwards. The bottom line of this analysis is, I think, that Christine Milne MIGHT be elected, but it won’t be on the strength of postal/pre-polls, nor on the strength of Greens below-the-line, but it CAN be done on the strength of below-the-line leakage from Lib and ALP. The scrutineers should be able to tell whether this is likely from tomorrow (i.e. today).

The most interesting contest from every perspective is that in Queensland, in which the Coalition is well in contention to secure a fourth seat and hence an historic Senate majority (notwithstanding National Party candidate Barnaby Joyce’s assertion that if elected he will behave more-or-less as an independent). The key point in the count will be when either Family First or the Nationals are eliminated – here the Nationals’ lead has narrowed from about 3500 on Sunday to about 2900 today. If the Nationals survive at this point, Family First preferences will put them ahead of One Nation by a similarly narrow margin (and here their prospective lead has increased from about 3500 to about 3700, Pauline Hanson and One Nation predictably doing less well out of pre-polls and postals) and then over the Greens and into the Senate on their preferences.

South Australia: With the Liberals certain of three seats and Labor certain of two, the final place will be a contest between Labor and the Democrats. The crucial point of the count is who drops out first out of the Democrats and Family First, a finely poised contest in which Family First currently appears to have a slight edge. If the Democrats can get ahead, the Family First-Democrats preference deal will then put their candidate John McLaren ahead of the Greens and then over a full quota with their preferences. Otherwise the Greens’ preferences will be deciding the issue between Family First and Labor – predictably, they have favoured the latter.

Western Australia: A refreshingly straightfoward outcome of three Liberal, two Labor and one Greens. The Greens’ quota will be built upon a primary vote of 7.73 per cent plus Labor’s surplus (4.4 per cent) and preferences from the Democrats (1.97 per cent).

New South Wales: Here at least it looks the Poll Bludger had it right yesterday in calling it as three Labor and three Coalition. If 100 per cent of votes were above the line (the real figure being more like 90 per cent), on current figures the last three standing in the battle for sixth place would be Liberals for Forests (0.81 of a quota), Labor (0.66) and the Greens (0.53). Since the Greens have put Labor ahead of Liberals for Forests, their elimination would result in the re-election of Labor Senator Michael Forshaw.

Victoria: An apparently wrong call by the Poll Bludger in writing off Family First, which was based on the assumption the third Labor candidate would finish ahead of the Greens and then win the seat on their preferences. On present figures the Greens would be leading Labor 0.69 of a quota to 0.59. That would leave Labor preferences deciding the outcome between Family First and the Greens – and perhaps contentiously, they are delivering them to Family First. The Greens have thus been doomed in being frozen out by both Labor and Family First. Ironically, if they had done slightly less well their preferences would have given the seat to Labor, which they would surely have preferred.

Queensland: It appears that Hetty Johnston (apologies to serious Senate watchers for yesterday’s rather strange conclusion that Johnston was in with a chance), Liberals for Forests, the Fishing Party and the Democrats will progressively drop out leaving the third Liberal and Labor candidates, the Nationals, Pauline Hanson, One Nation, the Greens and Family First. Labor and Pauline Hanson will then drop out in quick succession – somewhat surprisingly, this means One Nation will have done better than its founder. The next to be eliminated will be either Family First or the Nationals – the result is very tight with the Nationals just a shade ahead. If the Nationals prevail they will aborb Family First’s preferences which will put them about even with One Nation, again just slightly ahead. Since most of One Nation’s support comes from last-minute fine-avoiding impulse voters, it seems reasonable to assume that this gap will only widen as absentee votes come into play. When One Nation and the various components of its accumulated vote scatter at this point, Antony Green calculates that the Liberals will have 1.08 of a quota and the Nationals 1.03, with the Greens stranded on 0.89.