Victoria 2026: Legislative Council Prospects

It's a fine pleasure to be writing a preview for the Victorian Legislative Council that is not like this. It's also great not to need to write this.  Yes it would be nice if we could get rid of the regions as well but this is Victoria's first upper house election ever to be both adequately democratic and useful, and let's start with the great news that nature is already healing!  The abolition of Group Ticket Voting has seen candidate numbers for this year's upper house election fall by a third.  Eight parties are contesting every region and ten parties plus a few non-registered-party groups and ungrouped candidates are contesting some but not all.

The new system is similar to the Senate system, meaning that leads of more than about 3% will normally not get closed down on preferences, how to vote cards will probably be even less followed than for the Assembly, preference "deals" will mostly have little impact, and nobody is winning seats off 0-2% of the vote.  We might see parties winning off 4-6%, but that would be in situations where there is a race for the final seat with nobody with anything like quota.  More realistically parties will be looking for 8-10% to be in the mix in most cases, and even that much doesn't guarantee a win depending on what other parties have.  

A rare Upper House poll by DemosAU appeared this week but upper house polling is extremely difficult to get right.  No pollster ever seems to have found the magic trick for how to simulate the experience of a voter confronted with a two-dimensional ballot with a dozen or more columns.  In DemosAU's case they seem to be trying to do the right thing by listing plenty of parties, but for whatever reason the smaller parties end up getting overestimated.  (The more so in this case since the poll came before it turned out that Animal Justice were only contesting two regions.)  DemosAU's poll was also an outlier for the lower house (with Labor on 18% and another two polls this week have had them in the low 20s), so I'm not using it here.  

There was a poll of Upper House districts by Lower House voting intention by Redbridge/Accent way back in June, however it was affected somewhat by said pollster's very low "others" votes.  Since that poll I have Labor down 4.0 points in my Lower House aggregate, Coalition up 3.7, One Nation down 1.9 and Greens up 1.6.  At the time of that poll, when I used it to model the Upper House contest (with some adjustements) I found One Nation on for as many as 12 or 13 seats and shaping to be the largest party.  However, a lot has changed since.

One of the complications in modelling Victorian upper house elections is that recent elections have seen the majors underperform in the upper house, more so than anywhere else that didn't have Group Ticket Voting.  Labor has underperformed by 3-4% in recent elections and the Coalition by 5-6%.  An obvious cause is micro-parties campaigning hard because they could actually win under GTV, and also nominating in large numbers.  I expect this major party underperformance to abate this year, but by how much?  In South Australia this year Labor underperformed upstairs by 0.78% and the Liberals by 1.17% with One Nation overperforming by 1.46%.  All this seems to be largely about personal votes for major party incumbents.  Labor overperformed in the Senate in 2025 because of voters who voted for teal or similar independents in the Reps and Labor in the Senate.  I have assumed the Coalition will continue to underperform its polling in the upper house to a reduced degree, and that Labor will about match its polling.

As a first pass for eyeballing possibilities I have used Alex Jago's Senate-based 4CP estimator; I used my current aggregated primaries and allocated Ind/Other (which in Victoria is now mostly independents and left micros) 30% to each of the Greens and Labor, 22% to the Coalition and 18% to One Nation.  This gives an impression of what Senate results may have looked like scaled to the current primaries - but only between the four big parties.  This seems to me especially to be the best way to put some kinds of estimates on One Nation's likely strength without going into vastly detailed modelling.  (It isn't useful to simply project the ON vote upwards from 2022 since in some regions, especially Northern Metropolitan, other parties like Labour DLP competed heavily for the same vote.)

It is important to bear in mind that Senate experience suggests that upper house how to vote cards (HTVs) are not much followed.  This applies especially to those for minor parties.  In the 2025 Senate election for Victoria, the proportion of above the line voters following the cards (see full figures here) was just 20% for Labor, 30.6% for Coalition, 12.4% for Greens, and generally single figure percentages for other parties.  If you see models that use how to vote card flows to assign seats then just ignore them, they are useless.

Labor have in general pursued what appears to be an anti One Nation strategy on their upper house how to vote cards (as well as their usual bizarre habit of including the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers on their regional tickets for nothing.)  In general they've included the Coalition at 6.  However at this stage I am not seeing scenarios where this matters.  I may consider the impact of the Coalition cards, if any, when they are released.

For each region I give:

- the leading 2022 vote-getting parties with primary quota totals 

- the actual 2022 seat result

- the notional result for 2022 if the same primary votes had been cast without Group Ticket Voting.  

- the Senate-based 4CP Model for the region based on my Assembly aggregate.  Note that these numbers are not comparable to the 2022 state results, nor to a party's actual likely vote share, as they include the preferences of every other party that ran in the Senate.  

- a current estimate of what would happen in an election held now

- a list of the parties running in the region other than Labor, Coalition, One Nation and Greens

- some analysis of the chances in the seat

In general the high quota means that it appears hard for parties other than the big four to win seats.  The main ways this was going to happen were a 1-1-1-1-1 result where nobody had much in the race for the last seat, or someone getting over the Greens in a region where that could be a win.  However strengthening polling for the Greens and Coalition have made both these scenarios less likely.

This article is an assessment launched on 12 November.  It is not a final prediction as polling may shift further in the final weeks.  I may or may not have time to edit in any significant changes in my assessment; if so these will be date stamped.  

The initial version of this article has been written fairly quickly and may contain some errors and typos which should not affect the overall assessment.  In general, this is likely to be a quite proportional system as concerns the "big four" parties and it's no surprise given the current state of polling that I find a right majority in the Council to be likely.

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EASTERN VICTORIA

2022 L-NP 2.18 Q, ALP 1.59, Greens 0.48, LCP 0.25, LDLP 0.23, ON 0.21, SFF 0.18 etc

2022 Actual 2 Coalition, 2 Labor, 1 SF+F

2022 Notional 2 Coalition, 2 Labor, 1 third right seat (see below) or Greens 

4CP Model ALP 1.2 L-NP 2.3 ON 1.7 Greens 0.79

2026 Current Estimate 2 Coalition 1 Labor 1-2 One Nation 0-1 Green

Also running: Victorian Socilists, Legalise Cannabis, Labour DLP, Animal Justice, Sustainable Australia, Shooters Fishers and Farmers, one non-party group.  

In Eastern Victoria the right will easily get at least three seats and might press for four.  However since the Coalition is most likely to underperform it is doubtful that there will be spare preferences to One Nation.  This could on current polling be a tight contest between the Greens and One Nation for the last seat; this is also what I get off the Redbridge/Accent sample adjusted for polling changes since.

Legalise Cannabis were the best of the rest with 4.15% in 2022 and would need to massively increase that for any chance to overtake the Greens; this would require the Greens to poll badly enough that the survivor probably lost to One Nation anyway.  I see no serious prospect for anyone outside the big four here.

(A note that while I've tended in the past to cast the 2022 notional result here as a simple 2 Coalition, 2 Labor, 1 Green, with more experience of Senate preference flows from some of the One Nation charges in 2025 I now think it's more likely that one of the many right wing parties here would have caught the Greens even from 4% or so behind. There were just so many right preferences and the few left preferences would have split between Labor and the Greens)

NORTH EAST METROPOLITAN

2022 ALP 2.02 Q, Lib 1.82, Greens 0.62, LDLP 0.31, LibDem 0.25, LCP 0.19 etc

2022 Actual 2 Labor, 2 Liberal, 1 Green

2022 Notional 2 Labor, 2 Liberal, 1 Green

4CP Model ALP 1.66 Lib 2.14 ON 1.18 Greens 1.02

2026 Current Estimate 2 Coalition 1 Labor 1 One Nation 1 Green

Also running: Legalise Cannabis, Victorian Socialists, Sustainable Australia, Labour DLP, Family First, Libertarian, one non-party group, Democrats.  

Both the Senate 4CP model and an adjusted read of the Redbridge/Accent sample highlight 2-1-1-1 with the Coalition getting 2 as the mainline scenario here.  The confusing-name parties (Labour DLP and the then Liberal Democrats) had a great ballot draw in 2022 but don't this year.   A win from outside the big four seems extremely unlikely.

NORTHERN METROPOLITAN

2022 ALP 2.00 Q, Lib 1.13, Green 1.12, LDLP (Somyurek) 0.29, VicSoc 0.28, Reason 0.22, LCP 0.18 etc

2022 Actual 2 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 Green, 1 Labour DLP

2022 Notional 2 Labor, 1 Liberal, 1 Green, last seat Labour DLP, VicSoc or less likely Reason

4CP Model ALP 1.66 Liberal 1.29 One Nation 1.13 Greens 1.92

2026 Current Estimate: 1 Liberal 1 Labor 1 One Nation 1 Greens.  Fifth seat between multiple contenders including at least Labor, Greens and possibly Victorian Socialists or others.

Also running: Legalise Cannabis, unnamed Socialist Equality group, Sustainable Australia, Socialist Alliance, Labour DLP, Democrats, another unnamed group, Victorian Socialists, Family First, 1 ungrouped

Until I looked at the 4CP model I hadn't realised just how strong Northern Metro has been getting for the Greens brand; as they got barely over one quota in 2022 I hadn't realised I had to consider their second candidate as a contender for the last seat.  But with their polling on the up and Labor's being now so bad, it's at least possible that the Greens can get over Labor here.  The secret is that a lot of the Greens' 4CP vote share is hidden in minor left parties, primarily Victorian Socialists (themselves contributing 18% of it at the federal election) who polled 4.7% last time and could plausibly improve on that.  If the Greens don't get as big a boost as I think that they might, it's possible to see a Greens vs Labor vs Vic Soc contest for the final seat.  However Vic Soc are not great at getting preferences in this system even without group ticket voting.  They will have the benefit of being ahead of the Greens on the Labor HTV but it will probably not be much followed.

Labour DLP won with Adem Somyurek last time and could have done so even without GTV but their problem this time is likely to be that even if they don't lose votes directly to One Nation, One Nation will suck up most of their preference sources and probably won't poll that close to quota by itself, so will also be sucking up part of any Liberal excess.  Also they tend to profit from confused Labor voters but there won't be as many of those to confuse (they have drawn to Labor's left on the ballot though).  And Somyurek is no longer there.  Voters over the age of 900, which is about the median age for non-confused Labour DLP voters, may know that their lead candidate John Kavanagh is the brother of former MLC Peter Kavanagh; also he was somehow at two stages mayor of Moreland (now Merri-Bek).  

Legalise Cannabis did well in the Northern Metro footprint at the federal election with Fiona Patten as lead candidate but she is not contesting this time.  If there is a seat outside the big four, I think it will be challenging for them to outpoll Victorian Socialists.  

While the Senate-based 4CP model seems to imply that three right seats is unrealistic I don't think it should be ruled out entirely.  I'm really struggling to make it fly though, since the 2022 right result without GTV would have been only one seat or very barely two.

NORTHERN VICTORIA

2022 Coalition 2.1 Q, Labor 1.73, Greens 0.42, SF+F 0.31 LCP 0.29 One Nation 0.22 etc

2022 Actual 2 Coalition 1 Labor 1 Animal Justice 1 One Nation

2022 Notional 2 Coalition 2 Labor 1 Shooters Fishers and Farmers

4CP Model ALP 1.16 Q, Coalition 2.33, One Nation 1.77, Greens 0.75

2026 Current Estimate: 2 Coalition 1 Labor 1 One Nation, 1 One Nation vs Greens (One Nation favoured)

Also running: Citizens Party, Family First, Shooters Fishers and Farmers, Labour DLP, Sustainable Australia, Animal Justice, Legalise Cannabis, Victorian Socialists, 1 unnamed group, 1 ungrouped

On current polling Northern Victoria is a serious chance for the right to bag a slate of four.  The 4CP model only says it's close between One Nation and the Greens for the final seat, but One Nation polled a ridiculous 37% in the Redbridge/Accent sample earlier this year, and while that was surely overdoing it

The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers are traditionally strong in this area but are likely to lose support from One Nation, and will have nowhere to get preferences from anyway.  (Frequently the party most desperate to give them preferences in rural seats is Labor, but I don't see them having much if any excess here anyway).  Legalise Cannabis can potentially outpoll the Greens but if the vote is split between them like that then it's likely leakage and exhaust are killing them both and in any case the right may get four anyway; I also think One Nation will compete more for their vote here than in most regions.  I don't see anyone beyond the big four winning here.

SOUTH-EASTERN METROPOLITAN

2022 Labor 2.36 Q, Liberal 1.61, Greens 0.40, LCP 0.32, LDP 0.22, LDLP 0.20 etc

2022 Actual 2 Labor 1 Liberal 1 Legalise Cannabis 1 Liberal Democrat

2022 Notional 2 Labor 2 Liberal 1 Green

4CP Model Labor 1.8 Q Liberal 1.88 One Nation 1.41 Greens 0.91

2026 Current Estimate: 1 Liberal 1 Labor 1 One Nation, 1 Liberal leading One Nation, 1 Greens leading Labor

Also running: Christian Alliance Party - Reform AU, Citizens Party, Victorian Socialists, Legalise Cannabis, Sustainable Australia, Libertarians, Democrats, Labour DLP, 1 ungrouped

South-Eastern Metropolitan is the region where Legalise Cannabis, whose remaining incumbent Rachel Payne is recontesting, could seriously outpoll the Greens if they have not such a good election.  However at the moment the Greens are travelling too well for that to appear likely.  The 4CP model also suggests their brand might be in better shape here than it used to be.  The Redbridge/Accent sample agrees.  And there is also here a familiar story, that if the Greens are outpolled then whoever outpolls them probably isn't winning anyway.  But I would keep half an eye on this one because Payne is an incumbent (for what that's worth in the upper house, which might not be that much) in a region where her party polled spectacularly well (5.25%) in 2022.  

Although the Liberals seem to have One Nation shaded in the 4CP model, the Liberals are more likely to underperform in the upper house, so it's possible ON will be competitive, especially as about half the Assembly seats in this region are One Nation targets of some kind.  Most likely there will be a swing to the Greens and a Labor vs Greens fight of some kind for the other seat.

SOUTHERN METROPOLITAN

2022 Liberal 2.17 Q, Labor 1.78, Greens 0.92, LCP 0.17, LDP 0.15, LDLP 0.13 etc

2022 Actual 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green

2022 Notional 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green

4CP Model Labor 1.47 Q, Liberal 2.37, One Nation 0.91, Green 1.24

2026 Current Estimate: 2 Liberal 1 Labor 1 One Nation 1 Green

Also running: Democrats, Legalise Cannabis, Family First, Victorian Socialists, Sustainable Australia, Labour DLP, unnamed group headed by Melissa Lowe.

Southern Metropolitan is One Nation's weakest region on paper but even so they'd have to underperform badly on current polling to not at least scrape a seat.  Southern Metro is noted for its vivid disinterest in voting for micro-parties and I can't get excited about anything here at the moment.

WESTERN METROPOLITAN

2022: Labor 2.22 Q, Liberal 1.47, Greens 0.48, LDLP 0.31, LCP 0.26, VicSoc 0.21, FF 0.19 etc 

2022 Actual: 2 Labor 2 Liberal 1 Legalise Cannabis

2022 Notional: 2 Labor 2 Liberal 1 Green

4CP Model Labor 1.82 Q, Liberal 1.68, One Nation 1.37, Greens 1.12

2026 Current Estimate: 1 Liberal 1 Labor 1 One Nation 1 Greens, 1 Liberal vs Labor, but with micro-party possibilities

Also running: Labour DLP, Legalise Cannabis, Victorian Socialists, Democrats, Sustainable Australia, Family First, The Republican (short for The Republican Make Australia Great Again), West Party, 1 ungrouped

There's an awful lot going on in Western Metro.  A once pretty ordinary area for the Greens has been greening up around the edges giving them a very good shot at a seat on current polls.  There's Moira Deeming running as the lead Family First candidate after finally parting ways with the Liberal Party.  There's the pesky Labour DLP drawing the first column, which could very well keep their vote high through name confusion though it's hard to see them going anywhere with it even if it goes even higher than last time (and they'll probably lose vote share to One Nation anyway).  There's the unknown quantity that is the West Party (ticket led by former indie Joe Garra) - will it actually get significant votes?  There has been some focus on Victorian Socialists here where they averaged 5% in the Assembly (this alone rendered the Redbridge/Accent breakdown with only 5% for Others here implausible) but I don't think they have strength across enough of the seat to be a serious threat here in the absence of an obvious opening into a contest.  I suspect this is looking at a major party contest for the final seat but there are enough rogue scenarios here to keep things interesting.

WESTERN VICTORIA

2022: Labor 2.13Q, Coalition 1.62, Greens 0.52, LCP 0.30, SF+F 0.23, LDP 0.20, ON 0.16 etc

2022 Actual: 2 Labor 2 Coalition 1 Greens

2022 Notional: 2 Labor 2 Coalition 1 Greens

4CP Model: Labor 1.45 Q, Coalition 2.05, One Nation 1.59, Greens 0.91

2026 Current Estimate: 1 Coalition 1 Labor 1 One Nation 1 Greens 1 Coalition vs One Nation

Also running: Sustainable Australia, Democrats, Victorian Socialists, unnamed group, Libertarian, Socialist Alliance, Labour DLP, Shooters Fishers and Farmers, Family First, The Republican, 1 ungrouped

Western Victoria is the weakest of the non-urban regions for the right; most of the Assembly seats in it were won by Labor by a fair margin in 2022, though some are strongly Coalition such as Lowan.  This may explain why the Redbridge/Accent sample had the Coalition lower house vote here on a very low 19% with One Nation on 37% - rather hard to believe that was correct with only about four of the seats here are being treated as serious One Nation targets.  Here I am also a little sceptical of the 4CP model and I suspect the Coalition might have done relatively better in the federal election than it has been travelling in Victoria in this area.  Given that the Coalition may underperform its polling this is another one where it's possible that One Nation could get two at its expense.  This is another region where it is very difficult to find a seat for anyone other than the big four.

Tallyboard

This is what I have at present as concerns the likely winners and the expected right/left composition.

If current polling holds then it appears overwhelmingly likely that there will be a combined Coalition/One Nation majority in the Council.  There would also be a combined Coalition/Labor majority.  A Coalition/Greens majority is possible but would require the Coalition and Greens to between them win four of seven contests where I have flagged them as possible winners; I have flagged them as favourites in two of these contests and trailing in one other.  Three of seven could lead to a situation where the Coalition/Greens and Labor/One Nation each have a combined blocking majority.

Appendix: Redbridge/Accent regional poll

I note here the vote shares in the June Redbridge/Accent poll, taken at a time when One Nation and Labor were polling higher than now and the Coalition and Greens not as high.  I note that I believe this poll underestimates Others in many regions, especially Western and Northern Metros.  This was a poll of lower house voting intention by upper house region.

(Redbridge/Accent June 2026 primary votes for lower house by upper house region)

Victoria 2026: Majority, Minority ... Or Blowout?

Victoria Aggregate Labor 22.0 Coalition 31.0 Green 14.6 One Nation 21.8 Others 10.6 

2PP estimate 54.5 to Coalition, shadow-2PP 50.5 to One Nation vs ALP (subject to Coalition recommending preferences to One Nation)

Currently Coalition would most likely win a majority, perhaps with 50-55 seats

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I last had time (sigh!) to write about the Victorian election polling outlook way back in July.  At that point the Coalition was the better placed of the two major parties but were still a few points off a high enough primary vote for majority government.

What has happened since then in polling overall is that Labor's leadership change from Jacinta Allan to Ben Carroll has delivered less than nothing for the government.  In fact Labor's polled primary vote share is down, One Nation's is also down, and both the Coalition and the Greens are up.  None of these changes are massive, but they don't need to be - as the Coalition pushes into the low 30s its chances of majority government become serious, especially if One Nation goes down.    In recent months the Coalition has gradually edged from being in the box seat but not yet up to a majority in live polling, to a majority being more seriously likely, and now there is even some focus on the potential for a blowout and for Labor's vote to be devoured on all sides.  Ben Carroll has continued to make the increasingly ludicrous claim that polling shows the Coalition cannot govern alone, even while polling suggests that if the election were held right now it almost certainly would.  No doubt at least three people in some focus groups somewhere have implied this scare campaign is solid but I wonder if what it's really doing is scaring voters who actually care to the Coalition as the only party that looks like it might get a majority.  

Steve Bracks this weekend made the even more ludicrous claim that the three main parties are all polling around 30% - neither Labor nor One Nation has broken 25 in any poll since August!  Labor's high for the year in any poll is 28 and One Nation's 27, and both of those were a long time ago.  Bracks also claimed this was the first genuine three-cornered contest in Victorian electoral history, which would be news to those who voted in pretty much any Victorian election between 1935 and 1955, or watched the formation of government in that time.  

In the polling in the last few months Victorian Labor has overall looked more and more like an ex-government, and there is a sense of chaos similar to the final days of Rudd 2 as the party tries to work out how you sell yourself after a messy leadership split when the new leader has not had time to get settled, nor the party to settle its campaign around him.  Much of their output seems to be chasing voters lost to One Nation with weird law and order policies that for anyone even listening are likely to be seen as too little too late.  That said, not all of the readings are bad and there have been some polls (especially the Resolves) where one could argue that if everything went well the government might survive on those numbers.  Overall though things have been getting worse, and it is historically not surprising.  A third term federally dragged state government, with the federal government's own polling increasingly iffy (no surprise there given high petrol prices, an interest rates rise and recession talk) and with the state government having made its second leadership change of the term only a few months out.  Ben Carroll is already polling very unflattering personal ratings with a Newspoll net satisfaction of -28; not as bad as Jacinta Allan's final -46, but still no precedent for survival.  

This is what my estimates of the implied Labor vs Coalition 2PP in particular polls have looked like for the government in the last few months.  This may tighten again in the final weeks as the Coalition comes under more serious scrutiny as the government-in-waiting but a recovery from here for Labor to form any kind of government would be remarkable.  Nonetheless if Labor do pick up a few points and the polls have them too low for some reason, it can't be totally ruled out.  

 

At the head of this post I have some aggregated estimates of polling, using basically the same methods as my federal aggregate except for the following variations.  Firstly I have set the decay period (in which a poll loses about 40% of its weighting) to 10 days instead of 7 because of the relative scarcity of polling (Labor's numbers would be even worse if I had not done this); I will reduce it to 5 for the final week.  Secondly while SMS polls are banned from my federal aggregate, here I am using them but downweighted by 50% and with a maximum of one per pollster.  Thirdly I am using an arbitrary 55% Others to Labor flow. 

Current Exclusion

I am currently not aggregating the Lighthouse Political Monitor tracking poll reported by the Herald-Sun and conducted by News Corp's Growth Intelligence Centre.  The reason for this is that the Herald-Sun has persistently displayed very poor poll reporting transparency and a lack of standards about what it calls a poll, and there is not yet sufficient public information to establish firmly that this is a scientific poll.  In all probability it is, but I can't be sure.  I will however test it in my post-election poll ratings, but for me to include it in an aggregate I need to at least know what polling method it employs (online, phone, etc) and to have some indication of the question framing.  I am also concerned that the Herald-Sun continues to allow its poll reporting to be done by James Campbell.  While he is not alone in being terrible at it (and often in precisely this manner, ie not enough basic methods details) he has what should in any sane business be a dealbreaking conflict of interest as the husband of a Liberal candidate for the election.   

There is a lot of uncertainty about what will happen with preferences from both One Nation and others at this election.  Respondent preference samples have at times found One Nation flowing to the Coalition as strongly as the high 80s (but a cautionary note that some low-grade polls had the same thing at the federal election and it turned out not to be the case).  On the other hand, the right wing of the Others vote could be so hollowed out by competition from One Nation, and the Others vote so dragged left by things like Victorian Socialists running everywhere, that the flow from Others to Labor might climb to something like 70%, or even more.

There was an interesting possible pointer to the latter in the most recent Newspoll, where a seemingly remarkable 77% of Others voters chose "Labor majority" or "Labor-Green" over "Liberals-Nationals-One Nation" or "Liberal-National majority" when asked who they preferred to govern.  Perhaps however the framing was a little harsh on the right as the option including One Nation could be read as strictly a formal coalition option that excluded an L-NP minority government supported by One Nation.  That at least might partly explain why a third of those with a Coalition majority as their first choice next preferred one of the Labor options over the Coalition-One Nation option.

For what it's worth though, only the Redbridge/Accent respondent preference polls are lately showing large differences to my last-election-ish estimates off the primary votes.  The last two Redbridges came out with 56-44 two-party leads to the Coalition off numbers that my estimates put around 53.4.  Other respondent polls have been landing within 1% of what I have.

Overall Picture

My model off 54.4% 2PP for the Coalition (Labor 22.2 Coalition 31.2 One Nation 21.6 Greens 15.0) puts them on about 53.7 2PP seat wins.   This model was rerun after today's DemosAU reading with Labor on an 18% primary and I expect Resolve shortly which may be more moderate.  The Coalition winning that many seats on 2PP doesn't mean they would necessarily win all those seats.  In some outer suburban and regional fringe seats, it's quite possible the Coalition would win the 2PP in seats that were actually won by One Nation.  But all else equal for the Coalition to not win a majority, One Nation would have to achieve this in a lot of those seats.  Considering, for instance, the seats that are at least considered to lean One Nation in William Bowe's model, my expected Coalition 2PP-winning 2PP total is currently 10.3 seats.  So One Nation would have to win nearly all of these, or win some seats in which it is an underdog, to stop the Coalition getting a majority.  

There is also an emerging possibility that even with a vote over 20 One Nation may not win more than a few seats.  Labor going down and the Coalition going up on primaries is bad news for One Nation.  To win seats they firstly need to be in the top two after preferences, but they also need either the Coalition to be third or to have a lead over the Coalition that will hold off Labor preferences.  And with the Coalition polling well and Labor poorly, and One Nation slipping down a bit, it's possible that those stars just won't align in any serious number of seats.  For sure if One Nation are getting over 20 statewide they will be breaking into the high 30s in some seats.  But if those seats are deep rurals where Labor is third or fourth and the Nationals are also around the same vote, One Nation doesn't generally win those seats.  Based on SA, however, it shouldn't be ruled out in vacant rural seats.

This I think is what Kos Samaras is getting at when he has One Nation getting just a single seat (Morwell) to the Coalition's 52 off quite similar primaries to my aggregate.  That could well be understating it because (i) Redbridge/Accent has very weak respondent flows to One Nation off the Coalition and will tend not to flag them as winners in any seats where the 3CP is Labor leads One Nation leads Coalition (ii) I would expect natural variability in the results from any projections such that One Nation randomly gets luckier than expected in a few seats.  Nonetheless there is an argument there.  

There is a common belief that Victorian Coalition voters are unusually moderate and hence very averse to preferencing One Nation.  Senate preference flows provide no evidence this is the case.  In 2025, of those Victorian Senate voters (above and below the line) indicating a preference between Labor and One Nation, 73.8% preferred One Nation.  This is lower than NSW (78.2%) and Queensland (77.1%) but the same as Western Australia, and higher than South Australia (71.2%), Northern Territory (70.3%) and Tasmania (63.4%).  We've already seen that Coalition voters in South Australia did quite readily give preferences to One Nation in the state election.  In cases where the Coalition finished third, 66.6% of Liberal exclusion preferences flowed to One Nation over Labor there, and this is a flow that includes votes the Liberals picked up from other sources, so the flow from 1 Liberal votes would have been stronger.  

It's true that Alex Antic and co have destroyed the Liberal brand in South Australia driving away many moderate voters, but that was also true at the federal election.  It's also the case that Labor in the SA state election were a far less offensive proposition for traditional Coalition voters than they are in Victoria.  So I don't think there's the slightest thing in this argument ... unless the Coalition decide not to recommend preferences to One Nation.  Predictably the federal seats where the flow of Coalition preferences to One Nation over Labor was weaker in the federal election were generally seats where Labor polled strongly and/or One Nation weakly.  Calwell was one exception but there a lot of Labor's support was taken by a very strong vote for Australia's Voice most of which returned to Labor as preferences.  In the Goldsteins and Kooyongs the flow was normal, but in seats of that kind One Nation will be eliminated anyway.  

I have not had the time yet to attempt a detailed Lower House seat model of One Nation prospects in Victoria; it is more difficult for me than it was in SA because One Nation polled so negligibly in the Victorian upper house in 2022.  Between various predictive enterprises out there (some are nowcasts, some are forecasts) it's interesting to look at the variations in where One Nation is considered favourite.  

(At the time of writing Australian Election Forecasts doesn't have One Nation as a forecast favourite in any seat but still has a median total of seven.)

The table above compares the Pollbludger model, Australian Election Forecasts nowcast, Kos Samaras' recent AFR assessment of the current polls, Swing Is On, Earth Elects and current betting.  For the Pollbludger column S equals Solid and L equals Lean.  For everyone else O indicates an odds-on favourite (after adjusting for bookie rake for the betting) and F is any kind of other favourite or favourite of unspecified probability.  In all, 24 seats have come up in at least one of these sources, but only the usual suspects of Bass, Melton, Morwell and Ripon in half or more of them.

The Greens are now pretty consistently polling 14 and above and are also lately on a very obvious surge in Victorian federal samples where they are averaging about 16.  Depending on just how bad the Labor primary is and the distribution of the swing there is a prospect Labor that could be knocked out of the count in a bunch of inner city seats handing the Greens several wins in their second tier targets.  However for those seats that do remain Labor vs Green we are still waiting to see what the Liberals do with their how to vote recommendations.  

The above is an overview that I will add updates to for polls that come out through this week, and I intend to move on to an article about the Legislative Council this week.  With the Coalition and One Nation clearing 50% combined in every lower house poll recently there is a high chance of a combined Coalition/One Nation upper house majority, but the Coalition could now do well enough that it could have legislation passed with the support of either Labor or the Greens instead.  However the Coalition tends to historically underperform in the upper house so I will have a detailed look at this when I have the full list of nominating tickets.

Update Resolve:  Previous Resolve polls were fairly benign for Labor but this week's was actually very close to my aggregate, which has been edited in the header.  I estimated the 2PP for this week's Resolve at 54.8 to Coalition.  With Labor scrapping for second on primaries with One Nation (and in DemosAU for third with the Greens) there has been renewed speculation about Labor doing so badly that it is not even the Opposition.  I should point out again that this is not something we can read off the primary votes alone, since so long as Labor is ahead of the Greens they will be boosted above One Nation and are therefore well ahead of One Nation on a 3CP basis.  But there are scenarios on some readings of the DemosAU poll in isolation where Labor does so incredibly badly that they actually win fewer seats than the Greens as much of the inner city turns into Liberal/Green contests - this at this stage remains a very extreme scenario.  

Tas Labor's Spending Caps Bill Kneecaps Independents

Tasmanian Labor wants to stop people from buying elections, but they're happy for independents to be senselessly outspent.  This is my conclusion from their Electoral Disclosure and Funding Amendment (Spending Limits) Bill 2026 (49 of 2026).  I'm not sure if they're trying to wedge the Liberals, wedge the independents, or if they actually really think what they've come up with here is fair for Tasmania; it's not.  

An issue of Hare-Clark spending caps having the potential to advantage parties over independents in a way that could inspire independents to create front parties to rort the funding caps is not new.  I raised it (and more in person) at the Tasmanian JSCEM inquiry into the Greens' Electoral Disclosure and Funding Amendment Bill 2024 (No. 9) just a couple of years ago. In that case I pointed out that a proposed spending cap of $83,000 for independents and $830,000 for parties created a perverse incentive for big-spending independents to register front parties in order to avoid the lower spending cap.  

I noted also that lifting a dollars-per-candidate model from the ACT was not a good idea for Tasmania, especially because parties in Tasmania tend to run filler candidates to get their list to seven for formality reasons, while minor parties in the ACT don't need to do that.   There is also another important difference between the ACT and Tasmania - ACT parties run five candidates per electorate, not seven.  

So what does Tasmanian Labor do?  They come along with a Bill that has a spending cap of $60,000 for independents (in 2026 terms) and $1,750,000 for parties, of which a party can spend up to $525,000 on campaigning directed at a particular electorate.  

Overall, Labor's Bill does seem closely modelled on the ACT's spending caps.  It is slightly more generous to independents in some ways in terms of allowing them 1.2 times the spending cap per party candidate, and also because it has a limit on party spending per electorate.  However the ACT is an inappropriate model for Tasmania because its system discriminates hugely against pure independents.  A pure independent in the ACT cannot get their own ballot column no matter how popular they are and is lumped in the ungrouped column on the right of the ballot with other such independents.  With that and the spending cap laws, intending serious ACT indies now register front parties like Fiona Carrick Independents or form parties of quasi-independents with policies and preselections such as the former "Independents for Canberra". 

What is the problem being solved by Labor's Bill?  It seems there are two different rationales.  The first is the hobgoblin of someone being able to "buy an election".  The idea that particular elections in Tasmania have been "bought" is an election denial trope and conspiracy theory, "bought" being just a soft version of "stolen", that pops up here every few cycles.  It especially appears in connection with elections like 2006 and 2018 where the oppositions' losses were self-inflicted on policy and tactical grounds but there were also expensive non-party campaigns in favour of the government.  I don't think any Tasmanian elections ever have really been won by a party just because more money was spent on its behalf.  But at the moment there's a big concern that somebody will try it: One Nation.

Voters aren't actually sucked in by big-spending campaigns (by major or minor parties) that are bad.  Money helps when the campaign is saying something voters are actually receptive to, but maybe not as much as people think. The strongest argument for not letting a Clive Palmer spend megabucks on a Tasmanian election isn't that it actually works, it is that such overt spending is annoying in a way that makes people feel democracy is being laughed at. But let's say that Gina Rinehart throwing $20 million at a One Nation Tasmanian campaign would be a big problem - fine.  Identify an amount of money that anyone but the most dogmatic libertarian would agree is way too much to spend on a Tasmanian election and ban anyone from spending more than that amount.  That problem's solved.

That concern in no way justifies limiting an independent to $60,000. There would be some amount that politics-watchers generally would agree is a silly amount for an independent to spend, and that amount would be several times lower than it would be for a party statewide.  But that amount would also be a lot higher than $60,000.  Indeed, a cap of $60,000 for an independent puts them on a similar level to the Legislative Council's very restrictive spending caps given that the lower house divisions are three times more populous.  And this is in an environment where there is expensive statewide party advertising everywhere.  

So the second idea here seems to be a general push for "getting money out of politics" by winding back what everyone is spending.  But that presumes that major parties and independents are overspending to a similar extent.  That might seem true and then some if one considers the major parties' spending on a per-candidate basis, but that's the wrong way to look at it, because there are so many uncompetitive, and in some cases blatant ticket-filler, party candidates.  Even if all a party's candidates were serious there are major economies of scale in promoting several candidates together compared to advertising a lone independent.  

The major parties and Greens always run full slates of candidates (at least) in each electorate because Tasmania's pointlessly strict formality rules mean that to run fewer invites your voters to not vote formally, and makes explaining what to do harder for the low-electoral-literacy end.  But on current vote shares a major party is no longer seriously competitive for more than four seats in one electorate, and even four is now uncommon.  Labor in particular had well-known problems filling out its slates of candidates for 2025.  

Why should a major party that on the best of days these days might yet scrape up 18 seats (in Labor's case, in the last two elections they won 10) have a spending cap that is just under thirty times that for a  sole independent?  Why should a party be able to outspend the indie by a factor of 8.75 in a particular electorate (at some detriment to its spending cap for others) if it is only seriously in the mix for two or three seats there - or in a minor party's case, maybe just one?

Here my concern is not only with giving the indies a fair go to whatever extent spending actually matters, but also with avoiding perverse incentives for ballot paper clutter.  There are already way too many unnecessary candidates running in Tasmanian state elections.  The Braddon ballot in 2025 was especially excessive and confusing for voters and the TEC was extremely lucky to avoid having to print double-decker ballot papers in any division. Under the Bill as it stands any indie who wants to can simply circumvent Labor's spending caps by registering a front party and running a bunch of non-serious candidates alongside themselves just to boost how much money they can spend on getting themselves elected.  But some indies will prefer just to run by themselves, and I don't see why they should be disadvantaged.

In the 2025 election Peter George ran a non-party ticket with six likeminded independents, who were so low profile in the campaign that a hypothetical "recount" (casual vacancy countback) for George's seat would most likely see it go to the Greens.  Under this Bill if this group were to be registered as a party they would then have access to the same spending cap per candidate as other parties, and could in realistic terms spend whatever they liked.  

Labor's response to such concerns - well so far, failed ad hominems not only aimed at me but also Jack Milroy instead of tackling the substance!  Very strange indeed!  

With the numbers in the parliament the way they are, this may well actually get somewhere, even if the government opposes it.  Parties and candidates who in principle support caps are likely to have a majority in the lower house.  Caps of any kind could well be welcomed by the upper house where members have long been displeased by being subject to strict caps themselves while the lower house is not.  The Greens - who are potentially greatly advantaged in fighting with lone indies by this Bill (but will probably never have enough money to fully realise that) - have called it "great electoral reform".  So we may yet see deals done in which this gets passed with amendments, even if the Liberals oppose it.  Perhaps if the multiplier for lone independents was simply much higher - say, 2.5 instead of 1.2, then that would be enough to solve the problems.

At the very least I suggest this at some point be referred to Tasmanian JSCEM for an inquiry as was also done with the Greens' Bill.  But an alternative would be to refer the general question of finding fair spending caps with a term of reference that any solution must respect distinctive aspects of Tasmanian electoral culture.  

For information, the Bill also includes a spending cap of $75,000 statewide for third party campaigners and associated entities.  I may discuss that further later.  

Candidates Matter: The Blues Strike Back On Hobart Council 2026

This is a review piece of some themes from the just concluded 2026 Hobart Council elections.  The election count just finished featured some very close multi-way battles for councillor positions with winners ducking in and out through the different distributions.  Then we had the crowning oddity of the non-election of Ben Lohberger to council after he won the Deputy Mayoral ballot, which means that he now cannot serve as Deputy and the position will be filled around the table.  This event has previously happened in three smaller councils, but never in a city.  I now expect a lot of debate about solutions, most of which won't have been thought through. The result will for sure be used by those who think we should just ditch direct Deputy elections, a proposal I can make strong arguments both for and against.  The problem has become more likely this year because of the reduction in the numbers of councillors and it could very well keep happening.  

The Poll Position pod had some comments about this election along the lines of "campaigns matter", coming from a winning perspective after Brad Stansfield worked on the winning Charles Wooley campaign.  And campaigns do matter, in that Wooley won the mayoralty by in effect 2.3% over a main opponent (John Kelly) who announced pretty late and then ran what looked to me like a pretty similar and lower profile campaign compared to 2022.  I think that under other circumstances this result might have gone the other way.  For sure Wooley had big advantages as a high profile outsider who was more able to sell himself ambiguously.  I'm also far from believing all he did on the campaign trail was brilliant (especially his line about being home from council for the six o'clock news was a gaffe for the few of us who know that council meeting work is hard) but his campaign did things to keep voters interested, had good signs and made lively use of social media to cover a wide range of issues.  By doing this he was able to get away with skipping a lot of the candidate questionnaires and forums as he had got the message across that he was genuinely trying and wasn't just hoping to lazily cruise in on his profile.  

There was some debate between the hosts about what kind of councillor Wooley will be politically and Alex Johnston was talking about voters who would vote for Wooley who would "never ever have described themselves as blue".  And it occurred to me that there was actually an obvious way to look at how many such voters there were and I should write an article about that and about how candidates matter in council elections.  Because it seems really obvious, but the mechanics are worth spelling out.  At this year's elections, the left side of Hobart council politics has been depleted and then failed almost completely at recruitment, and it's changed the face of the council.  It's not the only thing that's done it, but if the left had more good candidates, then they would still have won five seats.

Assuming everyone now votes the way their campaigns indicated they would, the "blue"/right side now has a 5-4 majority on the council, after the left held a 7-4-1 majority through the previous term.  This won't manifest on every issue (eg cable car) but it's a big change.  And that was close, too.  The count swung back towards the left in the last 50% with the combined Green vote going up 1.5 points, and had the left done about 1.1 points better at the end of the count then the fifth seat could have been saved.  

Yes there was a general swing in public mood towards the right/"blue" side (some of it demographic in nature as low income earners are increasingly pushed north of Creek Road - heck the Greens got pretty close to two in Glenorchy in the end!) but candidate effects on the results have been at least as big a factor.  From the 2022 election candidate lineup the left side has lost Lord Mayor and Deputy Anna Reynolds and Helen Burnet, while the right side has lost nobody who got that close to winning a seat then and added Charles Wooley and Harvey Lennon.  And the left side has only added one new competitive candidate, Tiffany Ashdown, who was low profile at the campaign start but worked very hard over a long time, without coming super close to winning at the end. 

Given that the holes created by Reynolds and Burnet not being there should have attracted more new serious left-wing contenders, where were they?

This article isn't to argue that having obviously right and left wing candidates on councils is good.  Indeed in my view the very high level of factionalism in the last term was bad for Council.  But it is a fact of life that many voters will want to see their side of politics represented better and this article explains a big chunk of why that, for the left, did not occur.

Why Having Good Candidates Works

One might think that having more good (in relative terms) right wing candidates or left wing candidates isn't really a big deal, after all those voters inclined to vote for either side will just spread their votes around more if there are more candidates, which might even be a bad thing?  Well no.

Many voters in council elections are actually not thinking ideologically, and some who might be don't even engage enough to find out who is on "their" side.  Voters can also be motivated by specific issues (Save Utas, cable car, dogs vs soccer are some recent cases) that cut across left/right lines.  Some voters will know things outside of council politics about candidates that cause them to see some candidates differently to how I might see them.  Some voters vote based on community or business connections to given candidates from across the spectrum.   Some voters may also prefer right or left candidates but draw the line at specific extreme, badly behaved or personally annoying examples.  

For any candidate that does even reasonably well, some of their voters would, had that candidate not stood, have voted 1 for the other "side's" candidates.  Candidates that do well have the following effects:

Firstly, a candidate who does so well that they get a quota on first preferences gets some votes that could have gone to the other side if they didn't run, uses most of those votes' value to get themselves elected, and only passes on a reduced value.  They're also reducing the value of votes that could have gone to others on the same side as themselves, but the net loss to their own side is less than the quota the candidate got in being elected.

Secondly, a candidate who doesn't get a quota but eventually gets in gets some votes (and preferences) that could have gone to the other side if they didn't run, and sucks out all those votes' value except for the exclusion they're elected on (which has a partial effect).  Again, they're taking more votes off their own side, usually, but the net loss to their own side is again less than a quota.  

Thirdly, even a candidate who does moderately well but loses can be useful.  All that candidate's preferences are flowing on to the next candidates just as if they hadn't run at all, but if they've hung around long enough in the count, some of the other side's stars will get elected in the meantime, and votes that are 1 for this candidate and 2 for a strong performer on the other side, are then free to flow, more likely flowing back to the original candidate's side.

There's also some potential for a good candidate to help just with getting out the formal vote for other candidates on their side.  Council ballots are bewildering for many voters and if a voter doesn't know or like any of the candidates they're more likely to vote informally, late or even not at all.  But if they like even one candidate they've got the motivation to cast a formal vote and they may well vote for others of a similar mind, especially if that candidate has obvious alliances.

However none of this means that running just any candidate is useful for a side.  If a candidate is low profile and only capable of getting, say, 200 votes or less, then their preferences won't display any preference discipline to speak of, and adding them to the field means that slightly more preferences are going to exhaust.  So I suspect there's some, modest, minimum level of support at which a candidate helps rather than hinders their side by running.  An obscure or low-effort candidate who gets no votes is worse than useless.

Voters and movements care about and are affected by the issues that councils deal with.  But there's no point leaving it til the last few months before noticing you don't have strong candidates running on those issues and hoping the incumbents will be OK.  At least from the middle of this term on, when we have an idea what this council has been like and what are shaping as the issues for 2030, people in the non-Greens left need to be looking for three or four strong new candidates to run.  

Who Voted For Wooley And Kelly

Fortunately we have a good handle on the politics of voters who voted for Charles Wooley and John Kelly because both those candidates got surpluses so we can see who they put next.  With one exception, we can't see how many voters for one put the other next, and I can say from scrutineering there were lots of those (maybe 20% or so of each of the two's votes).  In the case of a Wooley-Kelly or Kelly-Wooley vote, the table below counts the third preference.  This data has actually been available in rough form from the time the 20% count went up, but the final numbers are quite different to the 50% count.  

Below I've found what percentage of each of Wooley and Kelly's votes flowed to each other candidate except each other, ordered by the number flowing from Wooley.  I've also given an expected alignment based on issue positions and tickets, noting that we don't know how Wooley and Lennon will vote on council yet and either might be closer to centre than the campaign suggests.

Both Wooley and Kelly's voters sent preferences to left candidates that could have been full-value votes for those left candidates had neither of them stood.  Between them in the process of winning two seats they thereby took over half a quota out of the count that could have gone to left candidates, while also taking almost a quota and a half out that could have gone to other right candidates.  So these two running as opposed to both not running is in net terms worth more than a quota - ie a whole seat - for the right.  

The preferencing behaviour of Wooley voters is clearly broader with 31.2% flowing to a candidate I've flagged as left while in Kelly's case 21.5% did so.  Lohberger (who has a degree of cross-factional appeal because of his strong position on Save UTAS especially) did better off Kelly than off Wooley but every other substantially polling left candidate did better off Wooley.  Kelly's preference flow was more heavily concentrated with Zucco, Lennon, Elliot and Behrakis (the four main remaining "right" candidates) and also Bloomfield and Johnstone did better off Kelly presumably through Hobart business circle links.  So Wooley did draw a measure of support from all over the place - more so than 2026 model Kelly anyway.

In 2022 Anna Reynolds (left) and Kelly got quotas on the first count.  Noting again that these flows exclude preferences that flowed between these two, 18.9% of Reynolds' preferences landed with candidates who might (tenuously in a few cases) be placed on the right while 30.8% of Kelly's landed with the left.  If Reynolds had been available as someone who could get Kelly preferences, this figure would have been even higher.  So there is no doubt Kelly's voter base has shifted to the right for 2026, most likely by him losing some of the lefter end of his support base as his voting patterns on council became wider knowledge.  He probably picked up some new friends on the right at the same time.

Women and toxicity

In the end Hobart elected two women out of nine, but went within 64 votes of not electing any, and two out of nine is still not good (Glenorchy to our north elected five!).  One of the two is also facing possible dismissal, which could reduce the number of women on council to one depending on whether there have been other recounts in the meantime.  Two out of nine is the lowest female proportion on the council since before Doone Kennedy and Dee Alty joined Dora Thomson from the 1982 election.  Women recorded only 17.3% of the vote in 2026, down from 38.2% in 2022.  I do not know when that was last that low, perhaps a similar time ago.  

The new Lord Mayor created controversy by saying the result happened because women didn't vote for women, and said that he has "turned [the question] back on them" when women have asked him about it.  He seemed to be saying that female voters were very harsh on other women's failures and hence readily didn't vote for them if anything had gone wrong during the term.  In isolation, women mostly not voting for women this year must be true, but it ignores the fact that there were very few to vote for, and that in my view is the core of the problem.  There were only seven in a field of 32 (down from 14/42 in 2022 and 11/36 in 2018).  Of these two were controversial during the previous council and two were low profile, and most female voters won't just vote for any female candidate because they're female.  

Now this could be just isolated decisions in the face of the reduction deterring new candidates (though as it turns out plenty of new candidates around the state did win); the ratio difference from 2022 to 2026 is not statistically significant.  But alongside the financial cost of running, toxic political environments are one of the factors that can deter many women from running for local government, especially if they're not already there.  Women accounted for only 3/20 Hobart candidates without previous representative experience, compared to 10/29 in 2022.  And one of those three was a previous state candidate while another was a parliamentary staffer.  

Quite aside from (though not entirely independent of) the constant bickering between councillors and council incidents during the term, the social media environment surrounding council now seems way more intense and worse than even a few cycles back.  In particular, there's a coterie of misogynist trolls attracted to the cable car and stadium movements (some of these are also big fans of certain Liberal MPs, who might want to reflect on that a bit).  But I've also seen some left accounts say things about women on the right (particularly Elliot) that they'd not say in such terms about a man of similar views and actions.   

I don't know what the answer is here and I am always very wary of politicians seeking to exploit complaints about social media in order to suppress it.  I do however suspect in this term there will be more anger about council's performance and antics directed at blokes (yep it's starting already and the new Council hasn't sat yet) and the environment for new female candidates will not look so obviously hostile.  Will this council overall be behave itself?  We'll see. Many of the better behaved councillors in the last term were either voted off or retired. 

Governance Matters

Hobart council was long dominated by the "blues" on a councillor numbers level - for as long as my memory allows, and I suspect back even further.  This has been so even though they have often not held the leadership positions in recent decades.  In the 2014-8 term they had only a slight edge, 2018-22 was pretty balanced and 2022-6 was the council's first ever clear green/left majority.  The following is a rough assessment for the terms for which I've compiled voting patterns data.  

These things are relative - a right-wing councillor by Hobart standards could be centre or even moderate left in other parts of the country or even the state.  And they can be influenced by the mix of issues and motions that come up in a particular council.

In any case the left majority has coincided with a nasty and contentious term which has contributed to the swing against it, as well as the candidate factors described.  But one thing I will add to this is that the culture on the left side of the council, and at times seeping into some council staffers, too often gave the righties both on council and on social media free kicks.  Incidents like the blocking of Elliot's Town Hall booking on a spurious pretext, at least three separate issues on which councillors voted while conflicted at least by pub test standards, the Property Council forum incident and even the infamous if overblown "snackgate" reflected the lack of an overall culture that said, we're in effect the government here and we need to be not giving the other side this stuff for free if we would like to stay that way.  With one exception I don't remember past left Hobart councillors being prone to such things.  Of course, some of the "blues" (the notional opposition) behaved badly or worse, but the next time the voters elect what appears to be a left-majority council the first order of informal business should be working on the sorts of standards that will earn more respect across the spectrum (or at least not lose it from one's own side) and keep it there.   

This may conclude my council coverage for now; I really need to move to the Victorian election which I've lacked time to do things on!  As usual the interest level in the council coverage has been amazing and in fact there were slightly more page views here last Wednesday than on the Sunday after the 2025 Tasmanian election, which is extraordinary.  I was too busy to put in a donations reminder on the live count pages but donations to support the work I do are always welcome; details in sidebar (if viewing on mobile scroll down and click "view web version" to see it.) 

2026 Hobart City Council Count

Any numbers that may be noted here based on scrutineering are reports of unofficial sampling - which is not necessarily representative - and are not results.  For official results see the TEC website.

MAYOR (Vacant):  

CALLED 4 pm Thursday Charles Wooley wins from off council.

DEPUTY (Incumbent: Sherlock): 

CALLED 12:20 Saturday Ben Lohberger wins Deputy Mayor subject to retaining his councillor seat, which appears likely [UPDATE: Lohberger loses councillor seat, position is VACANT and will be elected by council round the table]

COUNCILLORS (9 recontesting incumbents, 9 vacancies):   

Called off Tuesday scrutineering: Wooley, Kelly, Harvey

Called off 20% count: Posselt

Expected: Lennon [Has been elected]

Likely: Dutta [Has been elected]

Contest 1: appears to be Lohberger substantially leading Sherlock for one left seat [UPDATE Sherlock wins]

Contest 2: appears to be Elliot, Behrakis and Zucco for two right seats, incredibly close [UPDATE: Behrakis and Elliot win]

Three incumbents defeated, for now (Bloomfield, Lohberger, Zucco)

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Introduction

This is my specific page for commentary on the 2026 Hobart council count. Comments on other councils and general themes will be found here. Don't expect to see much on this page on Tuesday; there will be more action on Wednesday.

On Tuesday ballot papers will be removed from envelopes and there may be some computer data entry for some large councils but don't expect official figures.  I may have some indications from scrutineers depending on the pace of counting but the main counting activity for Mayors and Deputies together with the start of data entry is on Wednesday. The TEC expects to have a provisional 20% distribution for Hobart on Wednesday night.  These provisional results are what would happen if only the votes entered to that point were used to decide the election.  Usually most of the candidates who are provisionally elected at the 20% stage end up winning, but often some of those elected to the last few positions change.  It is common to see media misreporting that candidates "elected" in these 20% and 50% interim counts have "won" but it is only when the final, 100%, count is done that the winners are official. 

Where the final few seat results in the interim counts are within 100 votes or so (depending on council) then it's possible the winners will change by random sample error alone.  They can also change if a candidate's victory depends on which of two other candidates is excluded at a certain point.  But there is a more important reason why they can change, and it is this:

Stratification Alert!

It's very important to be aware that interim primary vote figures for the various Councils using automated data entry won't necessarily be unbiased samples of the whole count.  Votes do not reach the Electoral Commission in random order, but rather arrive on particular days, and within each day's sample they may be further stratified by post office of origin (for instance).  There will be political differences between the pool of voters who tend to vote early in the count and those who vote late in the count. Also, campaign events that happen during the postal voting period can have more impact during some parts of the count than others.  

The TEC may well make vigorous efforts to reduce this stratification, but nothing will get rid of it completely.   In 2018 a "green shift" was observed in many (not all) councils, with obviously green/left candidates tending to get a final percentage that was around 1.1 times their vote in the first interim count, and righties tending to drop back accordingly.  In 2022 (the first compulsory election) this wasn't really a thing.

Hence when the TEC release primary figures for various percentages be aware that these are not true representative samples and that past experience shows that substantial changes may occur.  (For instance in 2014 one candidate for one council who was not getting elected on the 20% sample was elected in third place, though that's an extreme example.)  Any result that is even remotely close will therefore not be called on 20% of primaries. 

Please note that I only "call" a seat when I consider it virtually certain that the candidate in question has won.  I ask that people not describe me as having called any seat where I have not explicitly used the word "called" for it.  A summary of how I think the counts are going appears at the top of the page.  Updates in each section scroll to the top.   

Hobart Lord Mayor

7:50 Wooley's winning margin is 55-45.  

4:05 Bill Harvey is going to get his moment in the lead and may perhaps cross 10000 on the Posselt throw. But with a lead looking like only 850 and having seen the action on Kelly's votes in the councillor counts there is no way this holds off nearly ten times as many Kelly votes. CALLED Charles Wooley wins vacant Hobart Lord Mayoralty from off council. (This has never happened in Hobart before.)

3:45 Kelly is not gaining on Wooley on Posselt at all. We are just waiting to see how far Harvey will be ahead of Wooley.

2:05 After the Dutta exclusion, Wooley leads Kelly by 673 and has clearly seen off the Kelly threat, Kelly will finish third. After Posselt Harvey will go to the lead and it might be a lead like 2000 but it is hard to see even 3000 being enough. We have seen this movie before. I am expecting that I will call this race for Wooley early in the Kelly throw. 

1:10 Wooley's lead is 582.  Dutta and Posselt have 7918 votes and Kelly would have to close the gap entirely off those but most will be going to Harvey and some will exhaust.  Harvey is just over 1500 behind Kelly but I suspect he will actually take the lead (to Greens calls of "stop the count!").  It will just not be a big enough lead.  

11:30 It's that sort of time in the count where scrutineers look at the piles in the distributions and over and over say "not enough".  Kelly appears to be gaining on Lennon but it's hard to see it being even 200 votes.  After that any gains would have to be off Dutta and Posselt, and I am not sure Kelly would make any gains off either.  [Update 11:55 - well I was wrong, Kelly actually gained 260 but that's still not enough either.]

10:35 Kelly will gain about 84 on Wooley off Zucco but that isn't nearly enough. To win he will need to gain hundreds off Lennon who is out next and then gain more off Dutta and Posselt, a lot of whom will flow to Harvey. Wooley looking very strong now.

Thurs 10:00 Bloomfield exclusion somewhat favoured Kelly and Wooley over the others and increased Wooley's lead over Kelly by one vote. Now the crucial Zucco exclusion and I would say that while Kelly may be gaining here it does not look like a big gain, which will make things very challenging.

11:15 Unknown to me they did do one more throw of Ashdown before knocking off.  Wooley again did better off a left candidate gaining 102 to Kelly's 54.  Wooley now leads Kelly by 922.  Harvey is already over Kelly into second.  Bloomfield is next and that will be an interesting one, one we don't have much information on.  

5:59 However Wooley unofficially gains 13 off Kelly from Bari and the mountain gets a little steeper. Exclusions to come: Ashdown, Bloomfield, Zucco, Dutta, Lennon, and presumably Posselt. Kelly probably won't get much if any help from the left (though he might get some from anti cable car voters) and needs a lot of it from Lennon, Zucco (these two apparently will help a bit) and Bloomfield.

5:42 Unofficially I have Wooley 861 ahead on primaries. Kelly closes by 6 off McShane. If the great Kelly charge can be a thing, here it begins. Bari being excluded.

3:50 I don't know if the issue with the 100 votes from earlier is fixed yet but with the ib person votes added I expect something like Wooley 19.1 Kelly 16.2 Harvey 15.7 Posselt 11.6 Lennon 8.2 Dutta 8.2 Zucco 8 Bloomfield 6.2 Ashdown 4.7 Bari 1.6 McShane 0.6. Making Kelly's task a little bit harder again.

1:55 I had thought the votes being added up for LM were all of them but they're not; there are still votes coming out of envelopes and still the overall picture can move. But while the votes coming in now are quite left I don't think the number being added is huge. The extras being added are in person handins which will skew left.

12:40   Looks like Wooley's lead over Kelly is about 2.7% (+/- 0.4% as there is a routine counting issue being resolved) with about 43.5% of preferences to throw before the 3CP point. That's not impossible to close but challenging with votes spraying, going to Harvey and exhausting. Advantage Wooley?

11:45 While I am in a VEC media briefing another scrutineer has extremely helpfully indicated that it looks like the Wooley pile is 14% larger than the Kelly pile, not 6% larger in the table previously seen, so that's suggesting a lead of something over 2%.  A significant lead but not unbridgeable.  Also with both these two clear of Harvey on primaries (even though I think Harvey will knock one of them out) I don't see how the left can win this.  The new Lord Mayor will be a green-tinged municipal tory, I just cannot tell you which one!

11:10 Rough unofficial totals from one of the five vote throwing tables Wooley 18.6% Kelly 17.6% Harvey 15.8% Posselt 10.4% Lennon 8.9% Zucco 8.4% Dutta 7.5% Bloomfield 6.0% Ashdown 4.6% Bari 1.8% McShane 0.5%.  I suspect Wooley might actually end up a bit further ahead on primaries than this, maybe a few percent.  With the combined left vote around 40% here I really think this is Wooley vs Kelly. I have heard from other scrutineers that Kelly may also be doing well off Lennon as well as Zucco.  He's close enough if he's good enough.

Wed 10:15 Votes are being thrown into boxes and the primary vote order seems to be Wooley, Kelly and Harvey close then Posselt. Ashdown prefs seem to be favouring Harvey over Posselt. If Posselt is knocked out his votes strongly boost Harvey and I suspect Harvey is going to make the final two. Kelly may do better than Wooley off Zucco (the obvious North Hobart vote) but not greatly so. Harvey will need flows on the left to be a lot stronger than on the right to win. I have looked at whether right preferences may exhaust more but so far doesn't seem to be the case 

Tuesday 11:15 My sampling didn't get much further today with Kelly dropping back a little but still ahead.  However on Wooley's strengthening on my councillor sampling late in the night I would not be surprised if Wooley is actually ahead.  In the councillor count I am seeing abundant 1 Kelly 2 Wooley and 1 Wooley 2 Kelly strengthening the case that if one of them is knocked out (which I now lean towards happening) the other wins.  Also if what I have seen on the councillor ballots is representative my previous sample had Harvey low and he could well come up from it.

Tuesday 6:35 I have sampled 500 votes (we'll see how representative these are later) and Kelly leads in my sample but only on 20% and narrowly from Wooley 16.4 followed by Posselt 13 and Harvey 11.8. Earlier it was looking like a right v right top two, maybe less so now but so far the right looks good ... how representative will this be?

Hobart Deputy

LOHBERGER HAS NOT HELD HIS COUNCILLOR SEAT.  DEPUTY MAYOR WILL BE ELECTED ROUND THE TABLE.

Monday: As above.  A perverse result in that Lohberger was certainly preferred to Behrakis by voters, and Sherlock very likely also was although we'll never know, but because Sherlock held her seat narrowly, the left cannot fill the Deputy position unless they can win it around the table on a 5-4 right-left council.  The new Council will elect its Deputy around the table.  

2:42 It's over, Lohberger gained more than four thousand and won by 3439 with 56.87% 2CP.  Close to a 12-point better left-right margin than Lord Mayor - but in one case it's an independent vs a Green and in another it's a well known unofficial Liberal vs a left independent with some crossover appeal.  I will have more to say about related themes when the councillor count numbers are final.

Saturday 12:20 And as with Lord Mayor, Behrakis has not gone as far ahead as he might have, getting just under half of Elliot's preferences.  The lead is 899 and Lohberger will win by thousands.  CALLED.  This is the first time the Greens have missed the final two in the Deputy race since 2005 when they did not contest it.  In that time Helen Burnet won it three times.

Saturday 10:45 And on it goes.  Lohberger now 562 ahead of Sherlock after Wallace.  It's just like the Lord Mayor count in reverse; Behrakis might go 2000 or so ahead off Elliot, whatever it is it just won't be enough as Lohberger will get an enormous flow off Sherlock.  I doubt that Sherlock will even get 562 off Elliot let alone outscore Lohberger on them.  

Saturdaty 9:50 Dale's preferences have been thrown and in a rather stunning outcome given Dale is on the right Lohberger has got more than either Behrakis or Elliot.  Lohberger leads Sherlock by 275, I expect him to gain on Elliot so Wallace is the last chance for Sherlock to make big gains.  

5:20 Johnstone was the last throw of the day and Lohberger has overtaken Sherlock (Behrakis is narrowly back in the lead).  It appears to me that Lohberger is in a rather strong position here, however the exclusion of Wallace as the remaining left candidate will be critical to see if Sherlock can make a somewhat unexpected gain.  Stumps day 4.

4:15 Lohberger is gaining significantly on Sherlock off Johnstone.  At least 50 I'd expect.

3:45 Sherlock will resume the lead off Campbell.  However while she is gaining on Lohberger off Campbell, it's only about 34 votes net.  Sherlock's lead over Lohberger is about 164.   Exclusions to come are Dale, Johnstone, Wallace and Elliot.  These will push Behrakis to a large lead and eliminate one of Sherlock or Lohberger in third. Dale and Johnstone are Liberals and Wallace is Labor, Lohberger is a left indie who appeals to some conservatives on issues like the UTAS move, and Sherlock is a Green.   It's politically logical that Lohberger would gain on all these exclusions and indeed he does get more than Sherlock off the three minor candidates in the councillor exclusions for what that is worth.  However neither will get much off Dale and perhaps not Johnstone either.  The pool of left votes for whoever makes the final two against Behrakis is larger than the pool of right votes, and a lot of this comes from quite a few votes I saw in cutup that had Kelly or Wooley for Lord Mayor with Lohberger for Deputy.  

2:45 Behrakis will take the lead off Alderton but more significantly Lohberger is continuing to catch Sherlock. Sherlock could well get the gains back off Campbell however.

2:15 Final primaries have Sherlock 5449 Behrakis 5416 Lohberger 5251 Elliot 4004. I don't expect the winner today, indeed by the end of this count we could know who of these are councillors [EDIT: That won't happen, Councillor count is likely to run to Monday or Tuesday]. Connor exclusion being thrown.

Friday 12:00 Remaining votes are being counted and my estimate for the votes to be added today is that Behrakis has about 200 more than Sherlock and 300 more than Lohberger. With the votes from last night added including the lot dominated by Sherlock I expect Sherlock to narrowly lead Behrakis and Lohberger with Elliot over 1000 off the pace. If this is true this is good for Lohberger who I think could well win from third if the primary vote margins are modest.  He is currently also best placed to hold his councillor seat.

3:45 Another set of a few thousand was wildly favourable to Sherlock who had as much as her main rivals put together. I think these could have been the drop-in votes but the fact that these even exist bodes well for Sherlock both in this one and the councillor ballot.

Thurs 2:40 The Deputy count has commenced! In the first 1000 Sherlock unofficially leads Behrakis by 4% and leads Lohberger by about 6%. I expect these leads could at least hold to final primaries. If the final two is Sherlock/Behrakis then there are about equal numbers of right and left preferences available. Lohberger does tend to draw some preferences from the right so it's not impossible he'd catch up. 

Tues 11:55 The three main contenders have improved in the councillor count so the risk of the most painful/funniest thing ever (depending on your position) happening is probably less now.  

Tues 6:35 I'm not technically a scrutineer of this count (if someone, anyone, wants to whack me a scrutineering form that would be great - EDIT: thanks to candidates who did this or offered to do so, I will now be street legal for this count tomorrow) but I can report that the masked and anonymous hive mind of the scrutineering forces has detected a surprising new contender ... THE MYSTERY KNIGHT. At the moment nobody seems to be getting a lot of votes here (all under 20%) and while Behrakis has a very slight lead in our samples on Sherlock and Lohberger (who could easily get into the final two and even win on preferences from my sample) with Elliot also not far behind, NONE of these yet look safe in the councillor ballot. So whoever wins will be hanging in for the 100% button press to see if they have two jobs or none.  If the unthinkable happens, the new DLM gets elected round the table with a nice dose of Rats in the Ranks sure to do wonders for the new council's harmony.

Hobart Councillors (9 to be elected)

Monday: IT HAS HAPPENED! Sherlock has leapfrogged Lohberger in the final count and Hobart has no Deputy Mayor pending a round table election.  Zucco also gone.  Examining.  Looks like the handed-in votes saved Sherlock but were not enough to stop the 5-4 split, and Hobart has two women elected (one of whom spent much of the last year hounding the other over the snack saga, and is herself facing possible expulsion.)

This is what has gone down here.  Sherlock care of an improved primary vote survives long enough that one of the blues goes out before her.  In this case it is Zucco.  At this stage the standings are

Dutta 2789.94

Lennon 2610.30

Sherlock 2548.92

Lohberger 2472.99

Behrakis 2378.62

Elliot 2292.32

Zucco (Excluded) 2275.61

So Elliot survives exclusion at this point by 16.71 votes (very close but not recount territory in the absence of concrete evidence of errors).  

One would expect from what we've seen before that on Zucco's exclusion Lohberger might gain enough to get ahead of Sherlock, even though the bulk of his preferences are going to Behrakis, Lennon and Elliot.  Also if there's a multicultural factor some of it should be dampened by Dutta also being in the count.

But somehow (it might be a rotation order effect, but I haven't checked where they were on the rotations with Zucco on top) this does not occur and Sherlock gets 75 votes off the initial Zucco throw of 1914 votes to just 73 for Lohberger.  And although Lohberger then gains strongly on Sherlock off the remainder of the Zucco exclusion and a surplus for Behrakis that's only 500 votes and it isn't enough and Sherlock wins by 47.25 votes.

It's also the end of the road for now for Marti Zucco, first elected to Council in 1992, and the longest serving Councillor for 34 years.  But there could always be countbacks if someone quits or is expelled and he's well placed to fill any vacancy on the blue side.

Sherlock has got up compared to the 50% count because on the final count Harvey's vote went up from 9.0% to 9.6% and hers went up from 3.6% to 3.9%, with the three minor Greens also up from 3.6% to 4.2% while Lohberger stayed on 4.4%.  Overall the final Greens vote is 1.09 times what it was in the 50% count, which is a similar effect to that generally observed for left candidates in 2018 (but not so obvious in 2022).  The extra 1.5% is worth about 450 votes, and though less than half of that flowed on to Sherlock vs Lohberger, just enough did to get her over the line on a near-200 vote margin turnaround.

The left were actually quite close to holding on to five with Elliot finishing on 2926 Sherlock 2633 and Lohberger 2586.  So just in isolation moving 0.76% equally from Elliot to the two candidates behind her results in a 5-4 left-right result.  But accounting for Lennon and Dutta being both short of quota a more realistic swing estimate spread across multiple candidates is 1.07%.

Friday night A post by Thomas Chick has reminded me that the large council counts aren't likely to finish til Monday or Tuesday so a weekend of suspense for the candidates!  

Friday 4:55 Unknown unknowns!  There is a widespread rumour (which I have some basis for considering credible, though not for being certain it is true) that John Kelly is considering quitting his council seat.  If he does, his recount would be very likely to elect the loser of the final seat fight between Elliot, Zucco and Behrakis.  That is significant because Kelly is anti cable car while the others are likely to support it.  

Elliot is facing potential expulsion from the council for a third suspension.  She is still free to take and hold her seat (if she wins) until such time as her appeal fails (if that occurs) and the Minister then decides to dismiss her.  There is a lot of debate about the meaning of "may" in the legislation that states that the Minister may dismiss a councillor with three suspensions - what are the reasons why the Minister might not ever do this?  

Thursday 5:10 The 50% count is up and surprisingly given the 20% where he was looking quite strong Zucco is now losing to Elliot, while less surprisingly Lohberger now beats Ashdown. Examining ... in this one Ashdown is now out before Bloomfield, and more at a point where I'd expect, by 46 votes.  Bloomfield then drops out 133 behind Elliot (this suggests that it's now very hard for either of these to still win). Sherlock is then out and is nearly 100 behind Elliot and Behrakis.  Dutta has done well off Ashdown so is by this stage well up the road.  Ashdown's exclusion is also good for Lohberger who now gets elected off Sherlock's surplus cascading off Dutta.  Lennon is way ahead of Elliot, Behrakis and Zucco and crosses leaving all these three short of quota and Elliot beats Zucco by 21.32 votes while Behrakis beats Zucco by ONE POINT SEVEN FIVE VOTES.  So we are now 21 votes off an all-male council and the alternative is a council where the only female councillor is Elliot.  I'm not sure Sherlock is gone yet - if the hand-in votes are not yet added this is close enough to perhaps still get her over Lohberger.

Thursday morning: I suspect we get a 50% count tonight so the 20% count will soon be history.  It is worth noting that as well as the way Ashdown currently wins being incredibly lucky, Dutta bolts in in seventh but he is actually close to losing too. He benefits for obvious reasons from Sherlock going out, but if Ashdown goes out instead that might save Sherlock and leave Dutta in trouble or in a close contest with Lohberger.  Behrakis too only just wins, outlasting Elliot by 15 votes, which might even change if Ashdown were to go out at this point and before either.  Zucco however seems to be reasonably clear of the fray in this one and is in a good position.

7:50 I hadn't noticed it before but in this provisional count Hobart is three votes away from an all male council!  Two of the three incumbent women had controversial terms.  For Sherlock, a part of her problem is that Harvey and the minor Greens are not doing quite as well as in my sampling, but the bigger problem is that she is only getting about a third of the preferences when the final fellow Green Trenton Hoare is excluded, which is remarkably low.  How much of this is down to her recent arrival in the Greens and how much to snackgate is difficult to say.  

Wed 5:07 A sensational 20% count with Behrakis and Ashdown (!!) provisionally winning and FOUR incumbents (Lohberger, Elliot, Sherlock and Bloomfield) provisionally out. That would be 5-4 for the right but not a majority for the cable car. I will study this very soon. 

I accidentally deleted some analysis here but to recap it Bloomfield is excluded narrowly ahead of Elliot; I am not sure if it makes any difference if it's the other way round. The insane bit is that Ashdown beats Sherlock by 6 votes then narrowly outlasts Elliot then ends up beating Lohberger by 3. The chance that at least one of these falls over is very high unless the count shifts in Ashdown's favour. So this may not all happen.

Wed 2:40 The in person votes being added are likely to drag things somewhat to the left compared with my sampling, boosting whatever chance there is of the left still holding 5. This can't be easy though as Dutta and Lohberger will have few preference sources and a few strong right candidates would be excluded.

Tues 11:20 With more sampling I am now up to a sample of 1000 and on this basis I am calling Wooley and Kelly who I am tracking to break quota, and Harvey who I am tracking to be close to quota but doesn't really need to be.  Posselt is now a strong fourth in my sampling and I expect him to be re-elected but have not called this yet.  Beyond that it's a mess.  I have Lennon ahead of the rest but not by as much as earlier, and I have Lohberger, Sherlock, Dutta, Behrakis, Zucco, Elliot and Bloomfield all extremely close together on primaries with Ashdown not far off these either.  

However - and an irony given his past form in crawling across the finish line - Zucco appears on my sampling to do well off Wooley and Kelly, while Sherlock is bound to benefit from nearly half a quota in minor Greens votes assuming Harvey crosses quickly.  That may lift Sherlock out of that pack and Zucco to the head of the rest of it, but we will see.  Even 1000 votes is quite a small sample for this one.  

Tues 5:30 I've been sampling during the unfolding of the ballot papers and off a sample of 500 the right seems to be doing rather well (also the case in the mayor ballots but I will update with more sampling), at this stage Wooley and Kelly would both get quota if my sampling was accurate. The following are so far also doing well in my sampling: Harvey, Posselt, Lennon. Ignoring the impact of preferences I then have a lot of candidates fighting for at least four seats: Behrakis, Bloomfield, Elliot, Dutta, Sherlock, Zucco, Lohberger and perhaps Ashdown. But 500 is not a big sample and it is always possible the votes seen so far are stratified.

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RANT: SLOPPY VOTING - Sheesh guys and guyettes bang the rocks together! For such an engaged city the quality of some of the votes I've seen today was effing embarrassing and some of you lot should be done for wasting TEC time in coming days. Get in stocks in the sea you people who think voting 1 on the Lord Mayor paper them 2 on the Deputy paper is clever, they're different elections!  (Maybe they should come separately in the pack but then some of you would lose them up your nose or something.) Not far behind can go the people who think the object of voting is to write your 1 so that as uncannily as possible resembles a 7 or even a 2. I saw one LM paper with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and a thing that was probably meant to be a 1 but could as easily be a 7. I'd actually call that informal; how do we know the 1 wasn't on the DLM paper?

Anyway best informal to come that I saw was a vote that went 1 Posselt 2 Ashdown 29 Behrakis 30 Bloomfield 31 Zucco 32 Elliot. Yes, "number at least 5 boxes to make your vote count" but, um, not like that