Victoria 2022 Legislative Council Live

The primary vote count is more or less complete - analysis continues on this thread until the button press but go to Button Press Day thread for summaries of results and analysis as they arrive.

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SEATS WON OR LIKELY: Labor 15 Coalition 13 Greens 3 Legalise Cannabis 2 Shooters 1 One Nation 1 Animal Justice 1 Labour DLP 1 

SEATS IN MOST DOUBT:

SE Metro: Liberals vs Lib Dems - very close and very difficult to model

W Vic: Legalise Cannabis vs Greens - Greens slightly favoured

W Metro: Liberals favoured vs Labour DLP

Overall outlook: ALP/left majority (22 seats expected)

Relatively few "Druery candidates" currently in line to win.  

Most crossbench incumbents will not be returned.

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Strong Disclaimer

*** This page is provisional.  Media are directed not to treat material posted here as in any way resembling final calls unless explicitly stated as such. ***

General Considerations

Welcome to my Upper House coverage for Victoria 2022.  I will start this by saying that I do not accept the use of Group Ticket Voting to conduct this election, and consider the election to not be free and fair as a result of the use of this discriminatory system.  Nonetheless projection of the results is a matter of political interest (and interest for the potential for reform) so I am covering it anyway.

These counts are at an early stage.  The ABC Calculator service acts as a handy model but it not only represents a snapshot of an incomplete count but also assumes all votes are above the line.  Hopefully an increased proportion of votes were below the line.  Below the line votes especially tend to destroy calculator wins in which a candidate spiralling up from a low vote wins narrowly.  Analysing these counts is very complex and my suggested rule for this analysis is as ever this: the calculator is only a tool, use it as a guide but in some cases you may have to put the calculator away.  Humans trying to second guess the calculators can also easily make errors.

As I start this article the counts are even smaller than at the same time in 2018, and probably won't contain significant numbers of prepolls and postals,  The trend with those is the Coalition tends to improve, so if the Coalition appears to be narrowly missing seats that may change in further counting.

Changes in the votes may bring scenarios into view that are not readily apparent at an early look, and in the early stages I haven't looked at where the votes are from.  These counts are also extremely complex to model and generally micro-party seats can't be called for sure until the button is pressed.

As usual small party voters have tended to vote BTL more than large party voters, and left party voters will have done so more than right party voters.

This thread will have a section for each district which will be updated from time to time until the button is pressed.  In general when I have a look at the districts (every day or so) I won't update those where I don't detect any change in the prognosis or have anything new to add.  

I welcome any comments about possibilities that have been overlooked.

As I start the thread the districts will be progressively unrolled through the night until all have an initial post up. The projections are not to be treated as calls of any kind and it is entirely possible other parties will come into the mix that I have not yet considered.

Antony Green has tweeted some preliminary figures on above the line rates for different parties.  The higher a party's above the line rates are, the closer its preference flows to others are to the calculator model.

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North-Eastern Metropolitan (formerly Eastern Metropolitan)

2018: 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Transport Matters

Outlook (Provisional): 2 Labor 2 Liberal 1 Green

As I start the North-Eastern Metro count is at 29.1%.  Leaders are Labor 2.04 quotas Liberal 1.65 Greens 0.72 Labour DLP 0.33 Lib Dems 0.26 Legalise Cannabis 0.23.

Transport Matters incumbent Rod Barton, elected with 0.62% in 2018, is currently last among the micro-parties, and even if he gets ahead of Companion and Pets Party that's no good to him as they just flow to the Liberals.  It seems that even if Barton's spiral gets going it doesn't get him high enough to catch the ballot-paper confusion parties (LDLP and Lib Dems) [edit: or maybe it does, see comment by Cameron N.]

Presently Hugh Dolan of LDLP narrowly beats Maya Tesa (Lib Dems) and goes on to beat the Liberals' Nick McGowan.  However this is a very fragile lead that could well fall over to below the lines or postcount shifts so it is not clear that any micro-parties will get up here, and at the moment the Liberals would very likely win it.  Labor could fall below two quotas but that doesn't seem to have any impact if it occurs.  

Monday:  34.3% counted and the calculator has flipped to Tesa.  Time to have a look at the below the line vulnerabilities:

Tesa vs Dolan: Tesa currently starts with 4.34% and notionally adds 4.34% (that's not a misprint) from Transport Matters, Angry Vic, NDP, SDA, DHJP, SFF and a small ALP surplus.  Of all this 3.55% is locked in, putting her on 7.89% in ATLs.  Dolan starts with 5.22% and notionally adds 3.29% from HAP, SAP, Family First Victoria and a small surplus of reduced value Vic Socialist votes via a projected Greens surplus which probably won't happen anything like that.  The crux here is that Family First is Dolan's main feeder but Family First has a very low above the line rate (57.7%) meaning that Dolan only adds 2.03% locked in.  So while he is currently .16% behind on the calculator, on projected ATLs he is actually .64% behind.  

Tesa vs McGowan: If Tesa beats McGowan she adds DLP, HAP, SAP and FFV to her collection which is notionally 8.47% including 6.88% in ATLs taking her to 14.77% ATL.  The Liberals start with 11.51% and are fed by a Green surplus carrying votes from Greens, Reason, AJP and LC, and also outright by CPP, UAP, FPP and ON.  The Liberals notionally gain 4.63% of which 3.76% is ATLs.  Thus notionally the Liberals have 15.27% ATL, a lead of half a percent.  Very close at this stage.

Monday night: Things have moved pretty fast here and the Liberals are now showing on the calculator as elected fourth having come up ro 1.88 quotas.  It is now in theory the Greens who could be at risk from the micros, but for the time being the Greens have the lead and have more votes locked up in ATLs.  The Greens have 15.6% secure in ATLs which at present puts them over 1% over the micros.

As noted in comments the Barton preference spiral now gets going if Transport Matters can somehow overtake the New Democrats, who they currently trail by 157 votes.  If that happens the calculator has them going all the way to the inzone but only beating the Greens by 0.39%.  This falls over on BTLs because the Barton spiral carries only 14.2% in ATLs while the Greens are carrying 15.18%.  The laws of small numbers suggest it is hard for Barton to get over New Democrats and the count is quite advanced at nearly 60% (as of Tuesday morning).

Thursday: Not a lot seems to have changed here with no obvious threat to the Liberal and Greens wins.

Friday: A bombshell inteesting development - reader Cameron N has spotted an error in the count in a booth called The Glen (Glen Waverley).  The votes for the New Democrats (303) and Liberals (9) have apparently been transposed.  When this error is fixed, the New Democrats fall to last, kickstarting the dreaded Transport Matters preference spiral which becomes the calculator leader (except the ABC manual entry calculator for regions other than E Vic isn't currently working) 17.31% to 16.02%.  After BTLs are factored in the notional ATLs are 14.85% for the Greens and 14.40% for Transport Matters.  However the ATLs for Transport Matters include 0.77% projected from the Liberal surplus, which occurs when the votes of CPP, UAP, FPV and ON have all reached the Liberal pile on the exclusion of Family First.  Only 0.22% is locked in here, so in that sense Transport Matters are really only guaranteed 13.85, % behind the Greens.  However every BTL that reaches the Liberals or their four feeder parties just mentioned before the exclusion of Family First, no matter what the preferences of the voter that casts it, boosts the value of a Liberal surplus that becomes distorted (by Inclusive Gregory) towards Liberal votes, and effectively counts as almost a full vote for Barton - he won't benefit only from BTLs that flow to him.  That means this is potentially rather close, though I would expect absents to move the count towards the Greens.  (Another booth that may have an issue is Lower Plenty where the New and Liberal Democrats with 25 and 6 votes respectively appear to have been transposed.)  To be clear, the Greens would still win if the button was pressed right now.  

Saturday: Stephen Luntz on Twitter has pointed out a problem with the above: although Barton is about to become the calculator leader when the error is fixed, the huge rate of BTLs for New Democrats n their remaining votes once the error is removed is going to mean Barton won't actually overtake anyone else apart from New Democrats.  On current numbers his 823 votes plus New Democrats' 410 ATLs (with 294 incorrect ATLs removed) is only 1233 to SAP's 1386.  It would be a different story had Angry Victorians preferenced Transport Matters first instead of Freedom Party first but Transport Matters second, but there you have it.  

Saturday evening: The ABC is now posting rechecked figures but these show the count at a slightly earlier stage than the numbers available before so it may take a while before the count catches up again.  The New Democrats bug is fixed but currently on the calculator Transport Matters are failing to get over Liberal Democrats though the margin there is very close.  In any case they still do not have enough New Democrats ATLs to overtake Sustainable Australia.

7 pm: Barton is now the calculator leader at 67.3% counted but as discussed above he is actually losing in three places (i) failing to get over Sustainable Australia (ii) even if he got over them, failing to get over Liberal Democrats (iii) failing to beat the Greens at the end.  

Eastern Victoria

2018: 2 Coalition 2 Labor 1 Shooters Fishers and Farmers

Outlook (Provisional): 2 Coalition 2 Labor 1 Shooters Fishers and Farmers  

As I start the Eastern Vic count is at 27.1%.  Leaders are Coalition 2.04 quotas Labor 1.52 Greens 0.55 Legalise Cannabis 0.32 One Nation 0.25 Labour DLP 0.23 Shooters 0.20.  The Shooters' Jeff Bourmann is currently the calculator winner by preference spiral, overtaking several other parties to beat the Greens with Labor winning two.

Labor are however close to elimination at one point where they are 0.35% ahead of Legalise Cannabis (probably a fair bit more allowing for BTLs).  If Labor (Harriet Shing) is excluded, their votes go to Legalise Cannabis (Thomas Forrest), who then currently wins.  The Greens could even go out at this same point, which would also elect Legalise Cannabis.  At this stage I haven't identified a threat to Bourmann winning.

Note that Renee Heath (Liberal) who is elected #1 here will not be in the Liberal party room if Matthew Guy has his way, but it remains to be seen whether the next Liberal leader will follow through with that.  

Tuesday:  With 58% counted Labor are now easily clear of Legalise Cannabis.  The only chance for Legalise Cannabis is to outlast the Greens but that is currently not happening by 0.85% on the calculator and more allowing for BTLs.  If Legalise Cannabis get over the Greens they win.

Northern Metropolitan

2018: 2 Labor 1 Liberal 1 Green 1 Reason

Outlook (Provisional): 2 Labor 1 Liberal 1 Green 1 Labour DLP

As I start the Northern Metro count is only at 21.6%.  Leaders are Labor 1.94 quotas Green 1.26 Liberal 1.00 Vic Socialists 0.36 Labour DLP 0.28 Reason 0.27 Legalise Cannabis 0.19

This region has a very high level of below the line voting, for left parties especially.  The calculator output has a Druery preference spiral feeding the DLP (Adem Somyurek) and a left one feeding Reason; ultimately Reason and Labor are elected ahead of the DLP.  Reason is elected 4 and Labor 5, but I think in reality Labor would (on current primaries) cross on BTLs somewhere along the line leaving Fiona Patten vs Somyurek for the final seat.  While there would be a lot of BTL leakage in the spiral going to Patten, almost none of it would go to Somyurek and on current numbers Patten would win.  However, we need to keep an eye on this, and especially on whether the Liberals can build up a surplus that then assists Somyurek. 

Monday: The current calculator lead for Patten vs Somyurek has closed substantially and it's time to have a look at their BTL exposure rates.

Patten starts on 4.16% and notionally receives 13.16% from the Green surplus, Legalise Cannabis, Angry Victorians, Victorian Socialists and Animal Justice.  This includes about 10.28% in above the line votes, taking her to a locked in total of 14.44%.  (There is a slight oversimplification here in dealing with the Greens surplus since not all Green votes are represented equally after Ratnam's surplus but it shouldn't make a major difference.)

Somyurek starts on 4.51% and notionally receives 11.66% from NDP, Sus Aus, HAP, TM, SDA, SFF, DHJP, LDP, CPP, Liberal surplus, FFV, FPV, UAP, ON.  This includes about 9.19% in above the lines (again an oversimplification for the Liberal ATLs) taking him to a locked in total of 13.7%.  Overall while Patten's feeders have a higher BTL share the difference is very slight (I get 22% vs 21% on current primaries.)  The locked-in gap is smaller by 0.4% than the calculator gap, but against that Patten will do well on BTLs anyway (one would think much more so than Somyurek).  On this basis if the button was pushed right now Patten would win - the danger to that being drift on primaries to the point where Somyurek gets a substantial lead on locked-in ATLs.  However the count at this stage is  unrepresentative, about 90% ordinary votes and 10% postals, and is also uneven by district.

Note that Labor is currently well clear of both Patten and Somyurek as Labor's locked-in total is practically a whole quota (16.7%)

Tuesday: Somyurek has taken the calculator lead, mainly off an increase in the Liberal surplus.  More importantly he also has the lead on locked-in ATLs; I now get him at 14.28% locked in compared to Patten at 13.77%.  There are about 5% in stray BTLs coming out of feeder parties for the two and I would expect Patten to beat Somyurek by the 0.51% needed off those, but it's getting precarious for Patten and she cannot afford her position to get much worse.  It's also worth noting that the count is still at a very early stage (only 40% counted) and is unrepresentative (about 60% on the day, 30% prepoll, 10% postal).  There is a lot of potential here for Somyurek's position to improve.  

Tuesday afternoon: Somyurek is building his stack (pun intended) very rapidly now and is out to a 3.69% lead on the calculator as he has risen to 4.85% but more importantly the Liberal surplus is out to 2.72%, with Patten and most of her feeder parties down.  On locked-in ATLs I get Somyurek 15.69% to Patten only 12.48%, a massive shift in the count for such a small addition.  The count is now 53% on the day, 37% prepoll, 10% postal (still no absents which will help Patten but she is suddenly in a very big hole.)  50.6% counted.  

Wednesday: And now it's close again!  More prepolls have been added such that the count is now 42% on the day 50% prepoll 7.5% postal (and a negligible number of absents).  Yesterday's prepolls must have been from a less left-wing part of the region as now Somyurek is on 4.67% with 14.75% locked in on ATLs while Patten is on 3.98% with 13.86% locked in.  If the button was pushed now it could be very close and Patten still might win.  I would expect absents as they go in in greater numbers to assist Patten so for now at least she is competitive again.  Still only 57.6% counted and the lack of breakdowns of the prepolls is a big frustration in doing any projections here.

Wednesday night: Another shift but this time in Somyurek's favour the count is at 60.4% and his estimated ATL lead is now 1.77% (too much for BTLs to overturn at the moment.)  That is on the ABC site which is about 11,000 votes ahead of the VEC so I am not yet sure what kind of votes were added.

Friday morning: Addition of some prepolls and ordinary votes from Thomastown (see comment by David J) have continued to strengthen Somyurek's position; he now leads on ATLs by 2.43% with 62.6% counted.

Saturday afternoon: The count has now regressed to an earlier % counted during rechecking so I will wait until it catches up to where it was before commenting further.

Tuesday afternoon: Somyurek's position has weakened slightly; he leads on ATLs by 2.01% with 66.4% counted.  

Wednesday: Somyurek leads on ATLs by 2.43% with 70.4% counted.

Thursday morning: 74.2% counted and Somyurek leads on ATLs by 2.50%.

Thursday 1 pm: 76.2% counted and Somyurek leads on ATLs by 3.05%.  Absents are now substantially included in the count and I am not seeing anything to suggest this is recoverable for Patten.  

Thursday 4:30: Nearly 80% counted and Somyurek now 3.30% ahead.  

Monday 12th: In advance of the button press. Fiona Patten has conceded.

Northern Victoria

2018: 2 Labor 1 Coalition 1 Hinch Justice 1 Liberal Democrats

Outlook (Provisional): 2 Coalition 1 Labor 1 Animal Justice 1 One Nation

(remote chance Labor instead of One Nation - see below)

Northern Victoria is the site of Animal Justice's spectacular ratting on the Druery group,  With 31.7% counted, the Coalition leads on 2.06 quotas, Labor 1.62, Greens 0.43, Legalise Cannabis 0.34, Shooters 0.34, One Nation 0.25, Liberal Democrats 0.12.  The Shooters have not done nearly as well as in 2018 where they polled nearly half a quota here only to be robbed blind by the DHJP and Liberal Democrats preference spirals.  

At the moment the calculator offers the hilarious if completely undemocratic sight of votes piling into the Animal Justice column never to be reciprocated as Georgie Purcell beats Labor by 11%.  But that is not the only spiral; One Nation's Rikkie-Lee Tyrell uses preferences from minor right parties and the Coalition surplus to overtake the Shooters and then beat Labor on their preferences.  The margins involved in this region are large and I'm not sure if there's anything lurking that would cause anything different.  

Monday: I ran a check on whether below the lines are any threat to Purcell but she has 18.4% in ATLs locked in in her spiral so at this stage not.  I mean to have a detailed look at how safe Tyrell is if she does not get quota at the point shown by the calculator.  

Tuesday: At the point where Tyrell is currently shown as being elected she has the preferences of AVP, FFV, FPV, LDLP, UAP, LNP, SFF for a notional 17.4% which includes 15.71% ATL, so she does not have enough to be sure she actually reaches quota at this point.  Assuming she doesn't. the Greens are excluded, putting Animal Justice over the line with surplus.  In this surplus the preferences of AJP, TM, SAP, Reason, VS, LC and Greens flow to Labor while those of NDP, SDA, HAP, DHJP and Lib Dems flow to One Nation.  This amounts to a roughly 73% share of above the lines in this surplus to Labor and 23% to One Nation, which gives One Nation 16.2% locked in vs 12.9% for Labor.  Exhaust and a trickle of BTLs would do the rest so on current numbers Tyrell still wins.  

Wednesday 7th: With 70.9% counted it seems Labor have closed the notional ATL gap above by about 0.3%.  Commenter David J suggests what is to come is likely to be very favourable for Labor so there may be a chance for Labor to get a lot closer.  I have not yet had time to model this in detail though a fair bit needs to come off One Nation and their spiral to stop them winning.

Saturday: With 80.54% counted Labor have actually gone backwards and are only on 11.48% on the calculator, down from over 12 last night.  Doesn't look like there is much to see here at this stage.

Saturday 7:20: The count is nearly finished and One Nation have tanked in late counting as expected by David J and are now no longer clearing quota before AJP on the calculator and only beating Labor by 2.53%.  However that is partly down to the AJP surplus being larger than it really is.  I will be modelling this in detail later tonight but I suspect One Nation are still fine here.

Saturday 10:30: Currently I have One Nation on 14.36% ATL before the Greens #1 primary votes put Animal Justice over surplus; at this point Labor has just the 12.11% Labor started with.  The minimum size of the Animal Justice surplus appears to be around 2.2% after applying a deduction for likely Green BTLs below first on the ticket; on that basis I estimate One Nation with a 14.98-13.69 lead based on ATLs alone.  The Animal Justice surplus will be larger than that because of votes coming in from left-leaning parties, which will assist Labor.  As Antony Green has noted the BTLs that have reached the Greens before Animal Justice will continue at full value.  As against that, up to this point there will have been about 9000 ATLs for right-wing parties likely to preference One Nation over Labor, to only a few thousand for left-wing parties likely to prefer Labor.  That last aspect suggests it will be hard for Labor to catch up.

South Eastern Metropolitan

2018: 3 Labor 1 Liberal 1 Lib Dem

Outlook (Provisional): 2 Labor 1 Liberal, 1 Legalise Cannabis, Liberals vs Lib Dems for fifth seat

David Limbrick (Liberal Democrats) had a great ballot draw here but at the moment he's getting cooked by the cookers - the flow of Freedom Party Victoria preferences to Liberals is making it much harder for him to retain his seat.  With 26.7% counted it's Labor 2.35 quotas, Liberal 1.53, Greens 0.46, Legalise Cannabis 0.37, Lib Dems 0.22, Labour DLP 0.18. Family First 0.12, Freedom Party 0.12, One Nation 0.10.  At this stage Legalise Cannabis (Rachel Payne) are polling spectacularly well though as in the federal election I would expect they might drop back somewhat in further counting.  However they would have to drop back a great deal to not beat Labor, at which point they easily beat the Greens.  The other side is closer with a race between the Liberals and Liberal Democrats in which Manju Hanumantharayappa (Lib) currently beats Limbrick by about 3% (perhaps a little more with BTLs) in a contest between right-wing and Druery preference spirals.    

Tuesday: With nearly 45% counted the race for the final seat has closed up considerably on the calculator to a mere 0.45% so I have looked at below the line issues.  The Liberals start with 10.62% and collect from CPP, UAP, FPV and ON and then the following via the Legalise Cannabis surplus: Legalise Cannabis, Reason, AJP, Greens.  The Liberal Democrats start with 3.59% and collect SFF, SDA, LDLP, DHJP, NDP, TM, SAP, HAP, FFV and then collect the following via the Legalise Cannabis surplus: VS, AV, ALP.  I make the locked-in ATL totals here something like 15.07 to 13.60 meaning that the Liberals are about 1% better on ATLs than the calculator says.  But also the Liberal Democrats are notoriously slow on voter-chosen preferences so the Liberal advantage here is probably even larger.  That said this is still a very incomplete count.  

Thursday: I have identified a threat to Legalise Cannabis' seat here with 62% counted, which is that they are becoming at risk of being excluded by falling behind both Labor and the Greens.  At present on the calculator Legalise Cannabis have 7.42% to the Greens' 6.84% and Labor's 6.47%. But the votes for Labor and the Greens are all their own while Legalise Cannabis starts from 4.96% and carries votes from Victorian Socialists, Reason, Animal Justice and Angry Victorians.  The first two have high BTL rates and Legalise Cannabis currently only have 6.89% locked in.  If Legalise Cannabis are excluded the Greens win.  However, at this stage the count is about 51% day votes, 40% prepoll and 9% postal.  Based on Victorian Senate patterns, Legalise Cannabis and the Greens should both do well when absents are added while Labor will fall back.  

Friday night:  68.9% counted and now the calculator has LC 7.33 Labor 6.78 Greens 6.56.  But Legalise Cannabis have only 6.79% in ATLs and might even be overtaken on BTLs if the button was pressed right now.  There are still very few absents in the count and I expect absents to not only benefit Legalise Cannabis directly but also their feeder parties, so for now they're still in the box seat.

The calculator has closed up on its gap between the Liberals and Liberal Democrats, which could flip in the near future.  As best I can tell which of Legalise Cannabis and the Greens go out has little impact on that race as the same votes end up forming a surplus in either case.

Saturday evening: Limbrick has taken the calculator lead during rechecking but the rechecked count is behind the count that was previously showing, at 59.6%.  I'll see where it's going when it catches up again.

Thursday: The count is now quite advanced at 82.5%.  Currently the calculator has LC 7.70 Greens 6.72 Labor 6.13 with LC on 6.88% in ATLs so Legalise Cannabis appear reasonably comfortable for now (they only need to beat either Labor or the Greens).  

In the Lib Dem vs Liberal contest, Limbrick is now out to a calculator lead of 0.55%.  The calculator has him trailing 15.40-14.05 before the Legalise Cannabis surplus, which I get as 14.15-12.49 on ATLs.  The calculator then has him getting 74.5% of a surplus worth 3.89% (that he even gets this much is a result of undemocratic Inclusive Gregory distortion on surplus transfers).  On ATLs, the guaranteed surplus for Payne at this point is only 1.97% but I have Limbrick getting about 86% of it - the reason he gets so much being that the Labor votes which are the most distorted by Inclusive Gregory are also the most likely to be above the line.   That puts it at 14.43 to 14.18 ATL.  Extra BTLs that go into Payne's surplus here will get downweighted by Inclusive Gregory with the Labor ATLs being upweighted, so BTLs can actually help Limbrick compared to this model.  Appears he's still quite a serious chance. 

Thursday 1 pm: The count has shot up to over 87%!  Now LC have 7.79 (7.21 ATL) on the calculator to the Greens 6.73% and Labor 5.95%.  It now looks reasonably clear that Legalise Cannabis have won this seat.  The other seat, however, is clear as mud, with Limbrick out to 0.65% ahead on the calculator.  

Sunday: Limbrick made a further small gain in calculator position and finished with a calculator lead of 0.67%.  Seems to me he is seriously in this.  The ABC's commentary refers to 67000 vs 60000 locked in votes but I believe this is the situation before the Legalise Cannabis surplus, some of which is locked in and on which Limbrick clearly gains.  

Southern Metropolitan

2018: 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Sustainable Australia

Outlook (Provisional): 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green

Southern Metropolitan was the scene of one of the great group ticket crimes last election with Sustainable Australia beating the Greens who had more than ten times their vote by preference harvesting.  With 24.9% counted it's Liberals 2.01 quotas Labor 1.83 Greens 1.00 Legalise Cannabis 0.19 Liberal Democrats 0.15 and Sustainable Australia has got even less than last time.  The Druery parties and a few others with no sense feed the Sustainable Australia spiral up to about 12% in what looks like a contest with Labor until Reason is excluded at which point preferences from left parties that have pooled with Reason elect Labor.  (Below the lines will probably make this even easier.)  With so much quota locked up in the top three parties it's hard to see anything shaking this barring large postcount shifts in the primaries.  

Tuesday: With 56% counted the main change has been that the Greens have dropped back to 0.86 quotas but they still win easily on AJP and Reason preferences.  

Western Metropolitan

2018: 3 Labor 1 Liberal 1 Hinch Justice (who immediately left party)

Outlook (Provisional): 2 Labor 1  Liberal, plus:

* Legalise Cannabis expected to defeat Victorian Socialists for fourth seat

* Liberals probably better placed vs Labour DLP for fifth seat

This one is messy and it's early days yet.  With only 20.1% counted Labor has 2.15 quotas Liberal 1.42 Green 0.60 Legalise Cannabis 0.30 Labour DLP 0.29 Victorian Socialists 0.25 Family First 0.17.  Currently Legalise Cannabis (David Ettershank) rides a left and Labor preference spiral to beat the Greens, but at one point LC is only about 1% ahead of Victorian Socialists; either way the Greens get ripped off and overtaken.  (I don't think it's likely Vic Socialists can catch up 1%, but we will see.)  At present the eventual election of Ettershank triggers mass surpluses that decide the contest between the Liberals and Bernie Finn (Labour DLP) by about 1.5% in Trung Luu's (Liberal) favour but that's not a lot for such an early stage of the count, so I want to see a fair bit more of this one.  (There's some stuff with surpluses at the end and I'm always a bit cautious about that.) It's also one where it could be worth keeping an eye on BTL rates for the left parties especially in case they could affect the exclusion order (or even save the Greens, though that seems unlikely so far.)

Tuesday: With 51.4% counted the calculator gap between Legalise Cannabis and Victorian Socialists has closed up to 0.77%.  Labor has a split ticket between the two and Legalise Cannabis have preferences from Reason and Angry Victorians, both of whom have low ATL rates, while Victorian Socialists have preferences from Animal Justice.  This means the real difference is more like 0.33% so Victorian Socialists are pretty close here if the count can improve for them in some way.  Currently the count is about 42% on the day, 49% prepoll and 9% postal.  Victorian Socialists are doing slightly better compared to Legalise Cannabis in prepoll so far than on on the day but that may just reflect where the counted votes are from.  (They also do abysmally on postals which suggests they may do very well on absents.) The fifth seat looks more clear with Liberals leading Labour DLP by 1.7% and from a higher starting vote.  

Thursday: The ATL gap between Legalise Cannabis and Victorian Socialists has come down to 0.25%.  There is a possible second path for Legalise Cannabis if both these parties overtake the Greens. Current ATL standings are (estimates because of ALP surplus issues) Greens 7.47% LC 6.92% VS 6.67%.

Thursday 8th: With 74.6% now counted, the calculator gap between Legalise Cannabis and Victorian Socialists is 0.55%, but I estimate this at only 0.10% in ATLs.  The Greens are well clear of the battle for the time being.  

Thursday 5:00: With 79.8% counted, I now estimate Victorian Socialists are 350 votes (0.085%) behind on ATLs.  In reality it may not be that close; Legalise Cannabis may outperform Victorian Socialists on BTLs.  On a four-way split with the Greens and Liberals included they did in this area at the federal election (comfortably), but that was a much weaker Victorian Socialists campaign.  

Friday: The ABC results pages are down but fortunately this is an easy one to track on the VEC site.  Legalise Cannabis are 592 ATLs ahead (0.13%) with 81.6% counted.

Friday 3:45 Firming up for team leaf; they're 937 ATLs (0.21%) ahead with 84.7% counted. Have also seen scrutineering comments suggesting they are likely to outperform VS on BTLs.  

Saturday: 86.3% counted and Legalise Cannabis are 1119 ahead on ATLs (0.25%).  

Saturday 11:40: I had not had a detailed look at Trung Luu (Liberal) vs Bernie Finn for the last seat before as it was not competitive early on, but it is interesting.  Currently on the calculator Luu falls 4.04% behind Finn before the Legalise Cannabis surplus, then gets nearly all that surplus and wins by 0.86%.  Because Finn is coming from a lower primary vote, I have his lead at 13.96-11.18 on ATLs to this point.  However the Legalise Cannabis surplus on ATLs is a lot smaller than the 5.75% surplus showing on the calculator - by my calculations only a surplus of 3.13% is locked in.  This surplus flows about 93.5% to Luu as a result of Inclusive Gregory distortion (in this case being cheered from this quarter as it cancels out a preference snowball) and that leaves the race based on ATLs alone extremely close with Finn leading 14.16-14.11.  But I don't think that Finn actually wins, for two reasons (i) every BTL that lands with Legalise Cannabis before their surplus will be reduced in value, amplifying the rest of the LC surplus with a value that is mostly Labor votes flowing to the Liberals (ii) I would expect the Liberals to beat Finn on BTLs anyway.  Nonetheless closer than expected.

Western Victoria

2018: 2 Labor 1 Coalition 1 Hinch Justice 1 Animal Justice

Outlook (Provisional): 2 Labor 2 Coalition 1 Greens narrowly leading Legalise Cannabis on known ATL votes

With 26.2% counted the leaders are Labor 2.00 quotas, Coalition 1.60. Greens 0.56, Legalise Cannabis 0.37, Shooters 0.27, Liberal Democrats 0.20, One Nation 0.17. Hinch Justice (Stuart Grimley) are on just 1.4% (0.08 quotas) but are the Druery group's preferred candidate in this region.  At the moment this just looks like a straight race between the right grouping feeding the Coalition, the left grouping feeding the Greens and the Druery grouping feeding Hinch Justice, but the Druery group don't currently have enough votes and are projected to lose by 4.3% (more than that taking into account BTLs) 

Monday: A threat has emerged to the Green seat with Legalise Cannabis overtaking them on the calculator and I will have a close look at this later (LC are more at risk to BTL leakage so the lead may not hold up.)

Monday 9:50 The Greens' Sarah Mansfield is currently on 8.59%.  Her only feeder is Victorian Socialists who have 0.71% but nearly half that is below the line.  Andrew Dowling of Legalise Cannabis is on 5.15%.  His feeders are Reason, Animal Justice and Labor's third candidate, a total of 4.48%.  Reason have a low ATL rate but the others are high, so Dowling has 3.80% in ATLs.  This means the ATL race between these two is very close with 8.98% for the Greens to 8.95% for Legalise Cannabis.  The Greens would be likely to also do better on BTLs so despite being behind on the calculator they would probably still win at the moment with 57.85% counted.  

Tuesday: With 66% counted the Greens have dropped back to 8.21%.  Legalise Cannabis are on 4.91%.  In locked-in ATLs Legalise Cannabis now lead 8.78% to 8.58% so this is a very close contest between these two (the Greens might conceivably bridge that gap on BTLs).

Tuesday afternoon: 70.6% counted now and the Greens are on 8.32% to Legalise Cannabis on 4.86% but Legalise Cannabis have a 0.73% calculator lead (9.73 to 9.00), up from 0.33% earlier today.  This amounts to about a 0.33% lead on locked-in ATLs, 9.02% to 8.69%.  Perhaps the Greens would still overhaul such a gap by getting more BTL preferences, but it would be hard to overhaul much more.

Wednesday: Legalise Cannabis now 0.86% ahead on the calculator with 71.9% counted, so continuing to trend towards them.

Saturday night: The calculator shows Grimley winning at present but that is because it is showing incomplete counts during rechecking.

Thursday 8th: Legalise Cannabis are 0.69 ahead on the calculator which I get as about 0.32 ahead on ATLs.  Only 72.2% counted.

Saturday 10th: This long-stalled count is starting to show some action again (now at 74.7% counted) but not much change, Legalise Cannabis are 0.75% up on the calculator which I get as 0.37% ahead on ATLs.

10 pm: Count is now at 78.16% and Greens are 0.66% behind on the calculator but only 0.14% behind on expected ATLs, a gap they might well bridge on BTLs.  This seat is now very close.

Sunday 12:40 The count is now at 88% on the ABC (ie just about finished) and I now estimate the Greens are 0.04% ahead on ATLs (0.34% behind on the calculator).  But while I would normally expect the Greens to beat Legalise Cannabis on BTLs it is not clear that this is the case here, where the largest preference sources are Family First, Shooters, One Nation and Lib Dems.  (Reason, Vic Soc and AJP also have substantial BTLs but less than the four right parties).  On a quick model I ran off Corangamite Senate BTLs, Legalise Cannabis made a gain of 0.08%, and while that may turn out to be incorrect for many reasons, it looks like this seat is going to the button unresolved.

Sunday 3:20 Surely can be hardly anything out there now at 89.11% and the Greens are 0.08% ahead on ATLs (0.30% behind on calculator).  I've realised one aspect of my model above was overly simplistic: the Labor preferences will include about 0.2% for Labor candidates 3-5, and these will leave the ticket at full value which means the Labor excess is more like 10% BTL than 5%. There are also issues with mapping Senate BTLs to Victoria BTLs because in Victoria voters can vote 1-5 BTL and stop, while in the Senate BTL voters are likely to number more parties.