2018 Tasmanian Postcount: Lyons

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Lyons: 3 Liberal 2 Labor
Re-elected: White (ALP), Barnett (Lib), Hidding (Lib), Shelton (Lib)
In doubt within party: Lambert vs Butler (ALP) for one seat - Butler now ahead and likely to win

And now, my last postcount thread for the day.

In Lyons, we have a clear status quo result.  The Liberals have packed their three quotas nicely with their three incumbents, which would have protected them from any threat from the Greens if there was any threat to be protected from.  Rebecca White has topped the poll with 1.43 quotas.  Labor has nearly two quotas, but its support candidates are a long way behind, with Janet Lambert on 1583 votes, Jen Butler on 1404 votes and Darren Clark on 1254.



Butler and Clark were higher-profile than Lambert but both had accident-plagued campaigns.  The votes that will determine the seat are:

* White's surplus (currently 4382)
* 1470 votes from minor Labor candidates Gaffney and Wright
* 3827 Greens votes (expect about 40% to exhaust)
* 3296 Lambie Network votes (expect maybe 40% to exhaust)
* 2389 Shooters, Fishers, Farmers votes (expect many to exhaust)
* 272 ungrouped votes
* a scattering of leakage and/or surplus from the Liberals, nearly all of which will exhaust

My suspicion is that Lambert might do well here off the Shooters, Fishers, Farmers preferences (since she is, after all, a fisher) and also that she may do better than at least Butler on the Greens votes. However, because of exhaust rates, the White surplus is the big show here.  Absent of scrutineering figures it is hard to say how it might go until the White surplus is thrown, but the matters that damaged Lambert's opponents on primaries might go on doing so in the preference throw.

Updates below:

Monday: I have had indications from scrutineers (a reasonable size sample from several booths) that don't suggest much break between Lambert, Butler and Clark in the White surplus, although there is a lot of booth by booth variation.

Wednesday: Lambert leads Butler by 158 and Clark is 210 behind Butler.  I have seen a lot of scrutineering data on this contest now and it appears that on the White surplus at least, Clark doesn't make much progress vs Butler.  It will also be difficult for Clark to make gains on non-Labor candidates too as these votes will be spraying in multiple directions.  So I think Clark's position looks very difficult.

Assuming it comes down to Lambert and Butler, what I have seen suggests the net break from all Labor preferences could be somewhere around zero and that the out-of-party preferences (especially the Greens) will be important here.

Thursday: I have seen more scrutineering figures (someone I shan't name is being incredibly helpful here!)  There is a bit of a pattern with Greens votes going towards Butler over Lambert, but it needs more confirmation.  If it's real Butler could win though it could be incredibly close.

Friday: Lambert leads Butler by 165 and Butler leads Clark by 215, so not a lot new to see here, as is to be expected when none of these candidates have a lot of votes.

Update Tuesday morning: Lyons had the biggest bundle of late postals (131 added). Lambert leads Butler by 167 and Butler leads Clark by 215.  We'll start the cutup with the White surplus, then exclusions from the bottom up with nobody passing quota for a very long time.

Tuesday lunch: The White surplus has been done and Butler closed very slightly on Lambert, now trailing by 132, while Butler increased her lead on Clark to 456.  That's a slightly better result for Butler than the scrutineering samples, which slightly favoured Lambert on White's surplus.  Lambert's lead looks very shaky at this stage but there is still a very long way to go.  Clark looks out of it.

3 pm: Minor exclusions going on - Butler continuing to chip away at Lambert's lead which is now down to 119 votes.

4:30: Matthew Allen, who was advertised as ticket leader for the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, has been outlasted by three of his ticketmates.

Wednesday

10:00 Still plowing through all the minor exclusions, but the first significant one, Labor's Gerard Gaffney is likely to be next after the Greens' Lucy Landon-Lane.  Lambert now leads by 124 votes.

11:20 Gaffney gone and Butler takes the lead by 97.  Clark also made a massive gain and is only 247 behind Lambert, but would have to do most of that on the 1553 votes remaining with Wright, which seems unlikely.  We now have a couple of boring minor candidate exclusions from the Shooters and the Lambie Network, and then the important Wright throw.

11:27: Lambert has made a surprisingly large gain off leaks from the Lambie Network and is now 66 behind Butler.  Wright is being excluded now then the #2 Green Hutchinson, then the final Shooters candidate.  Because of Lambert's fishing connections it will be interesting to see if she gets anything at that point.

3:00: Lambert has retaken the lead on Wright's preferences.  She leads Butler by 95. Clark has failed to pass either Kent (JLN) or Tucker (Liberal) so it's looking likely that Clark will be next out after Hutchinson and Broadby (SF+F), and that Clark's preferences will either decide things or leave a very close race at the mercy of JLN, Green and Liberal preferences.

3:25: Hutchinson gone, Lambert now in front by 105.

5:08: Broadby done and Lambert didn't get much of a break there, leads by 117.  Clark is being excluded now.

5:40: Lambert and Butler will be left in suspense as the TEC has given this one a break for the day.

Thursday

11:01:  Huge break for Butler on the Clark votes, jumping to 300 ahead.  It is going to be very difficult for Lambert to peg those back mainly on the Green and JLN votes, but we have sometimes seen candidates make such gains on cross-party votes in the past.

The preferences of Liberal John Tucker are being thrown now and will probably put Jane Howlett too far ahead of the Labor candidates for them to both catch her on Greens preferences.  If that's right Howlett will never be excluded and the throws to come are Kent, Brindley and whichever ALP candidate loses.  On the Kent and Brindley throws there will still be Liberals in the count to receive preferences (maybe some of them might get quota eventually!) On that basis my estimate is about 3000 more votes could reach the Labor ticket and of these Lambert will need about a 55-45 split. I did see one small scrutineering sample of Kent's preferences that was stronger than that for Lambert but it was from an area within Lambert's municipal base, so I wouldn't read anything into that.

5:11 After the exclusions of Kent and Brindley, the lead has barely changed with Butler up by 341. However to my surprise, Lambert just got over Howlett so on we go. 7000 votes to throw which will put the three incumbents over quota with just over 4000 leaving the ticket. More than half should exhaust so Lambert would need about a 60-40 split on those that don't (perhaps more).  Seems highly unlikely.

7:04 Howlett is fully excluded and Lambert has made a minor gain to now trail by 311.  Lambert gained 30 out of 719 that left the ticket; there are still 3384 to throw.  So at that rate Lambert might close to less than 200.  Her only hope is that the votes that flow through multiple Liberals behave more strongly in her favour than those that left the ticket.

8:18 All over and Butler has won by 347 votes.