ACT Election 2024: Counting Day Live

Startline from 2020 election: 10 Labor 9 Liberal 6 Greens 

Likely result 10 Labor 9 Liberal 3 Green 1 Ind for Canberra 1 Carrick 1 undecided

In doubt: Labor vs Liberal vs Greens (Brindabella) - Liberal appears likely 

(some others not fully confirmed)

Labor/Greens combined majority (as opposed to shared balance of power) looks extremely likely.

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Comments will appear here scrolling to the top from 6 pm

11:15 End of night wrap: What we have seen in the ACT election is no major change for the major parties, with Labor, Liberals and Greens all down a bit on vote share at the moment with the emergence of Independents for Canberra.  The Greens were extremely lucky to win six seats in 2020 and an unsurprising but small decline in their vote was always a risk of costing them three.  While 10-10-3-1-1 still looks like the most likely scenario there remain some different scenarios in Brindabella where the flow of preferences between the left parties could still see the Greens retain against the odds, or there is a very weird scenario in which Labor gets three, but more likely is that postals snuff all this out with the Liberals winning.  A further distribution is needed here.

The two most likely fourth-party chances, Thomas Emerson and Fiona Carrick, appear to have won convincingly, but there has not been a wave of "independents" as some expected. Still, these are good breakthroughs after decades of only three parties winning.

Not much really changes in the ACT in terms of the majors.  If the Liberals do manage to tie Labor's seat count that will be another tick in the box for federal drag, but nothing like the tick seen in the Northern Territory.  I am not sure the question "how can the Canberra Liberals win?" really has an answer yet, until Labor really screw things up the place is simply too left-wing,  

10:08 In the second Murrumbidgee distrubution Singh beats Cocks by 188 votes at the end, but there is a tipping point where they are practically tied and 115 ahead of the Greens, so if the Greens come up it's a tossup.  In numbers since, that hasn't happened, so for now advantage Singh.  

9:44 There were updates to the item below spanning about 20 minutes.  Unknown to me a second distribution did go up, apparently at 8:21.  In this one in Brindabella the Liberals were on 2.72 Q Labor 2.02 Q Greens 0.50 Q.  Nuttall was just 87 votes short of outlasting Gentleman (suggesting she very likely is now ahead) and the Liberal over Labor margin is only 303 (this too has probably now flipped but may be irrelevant).  

8:51 Chisholm issue fixed.  What happens with Brindabella in the interim distribution is that despite Labor trailing 2.02 quotas to 2.77 quotas, they keep three candidates in the race who use the Ginninderra Effect (drink) to outlast the Greens, Independents for Canberra etc and get their preferences.  As a result of this at the point where Gentleman is excluded, Labor has risen to 2.63 Q vs 0.86 Q for the Liberals, but more than that, Labor have two candidates short of quota and Gentleman is on 0.76 quotas.  Now that's the interim distribution, but also since then the Liberals are down 0.19 quotas to 2.58 and Labor are up 0.09.  Labor's gain splits two ways, but I'm not sure the Liberals get any such benefit.  So on live numbers the Liberals may be behind - an astonishing scenario that may get snuffed out by postals but amazing it's even possible.  There is a possible threat to this scenario which is Laura Nuttall knocking out Gentleman (289 short in the first distribution), after which he would elect his ticketmates and the whole thing collapses ... but then Nuttall gets to go against the third Liberal for the final seat, so Nuttall isn't out of it either.  

8:35 Count issue in Brindabella.  The Chisholm booth is showing 900 votes for the Liberals but no votes for anyone else.  Excluding that booth the Liberals are currently on 44.2% not 45.5%, with Labor on 33.9% not 33.1%, which means the Liberals will have only a very narrow lead for the final seat on live numbers.  Still have to see how much that shifts and whether the Liberals fall behind by the end of the night.  

8:25 Greens improving across the board as day votes come in, but at this stage not by enough to save any of their endangered seats.  

8:19 I've looked especially at Brindabella because the distribution margin was reasonably close but contra to all their spruiking to the ABC, Labor are so far not gaining there.  

8:02 Doing some calculations so I can usefully track the changes in vote through the night now, will take a little while.  There was a theory that in Ginninderra the Liberals by running only four candidates would have preferences to throw to Family First or Belco.  What is happening is that the Liberal vote is so split that the individual Liberals are outlasting anyone who could get those preferences.  Note that while the primary vote gap Liberals to Labor is closing on on-the-day votes, it will blow out again on postals.  

7:53 Mick Gentleman looks like being defeated by friendly fire in Brindabella from Caitlin Tough and Taimus Werner-Gibbings.  Tough has polled well on primaries but is also getting a pile of Green preferences.  At the moment Gentleman is out by around 600 votes which is very unlikely to close.  (UPDATE: See above - Labor could win three seats).  

7:40 Murrumbidgee Liberal fight: There's a very close fight in this seat between Ed Cocks and Amardeep Singh.  Cocks was elected on a recount mid-term despite Singh having outpolled him, and now Singh might be turning the tables, or not.  In the interim distribution Singh wins by 128 votes.  Aside from the closeness of this margin (which could be overturned by further votes) another possible threat is that if the Greens lift the seat could be decided at an earlier point where Singh is only 18 votes ahead.  However, that's a pretty big ask given Liberals tend to improve in the postcount.  

OVERALL: None of the party results appear close at this stage.  At this stage there would need to be big changes to the final vote tallies for the results to be other than 10 Labor 10 Liberal 3 Green 1 Independent for Canberra and 1 independent.  (You can all tell I was looking forward to writing "1 Independent for Canberra and 1 independent", can't you?)

7:29 YERRABI DISTRIBUTION 1: Interim result is 2-2-1 with the Greens beating David Pollard (I4C).  The margin is currently 848 votes which is a large margin.  Pollard does have a few lifelines in terms of getting over some major party candidates but they are probably not worth a lot.

7:24 MURRUMBIDGEE DISTRIBUTION 1: Interim result is 2-2-0-1 with Carrick winning very easily.  The Greens are excluded over 1300 behind anyone except for the Liberals Ed Cocks and Amardeep Singh who are fighting each other for the second Liberal seat (this is a very close candidate fight).  The overall party result is very clear.  

7:20 KURRAJONG DISTRIBUTION 1: Interim result is 2-1-1-1 with Thomas Emerson winning extremely easily by 1327 over the Liberals.  

7:17 GINNINDERRA DISTRIBUTION 1: The interim result is 2-2-1 with the Greens easily beating I4C (who overtake the Liberals, though it doesn't matter if they don't) by 0.18 quotas.  

7:15 BRINDABELLA DISTRIBUTION 1: The interim result is 3-2 with the Liberals just over 0.1 quotas ahead of Labor.  That's not particularly close especially as the Liberals tend to lift in the post-count.

7:08 Interim preference distributions have reached Antony Green but not yet the Elections ACT website!

7:00 In Kurrajong the concentration of the vote with Thomas Emerson within the I4C ticket is outstanding!  And in the Liberals the vote is very concentrated with Lee.  Emerson is in a very strong position if these numbers continue.  The Carrick to Greens gap is 0.23 quotas.  

6:45 Those votes are up again! Still not sure if they are real or test votes but quick summary coming (this is 130 K votes so probably the early electronics)

Brindabella: Liberals 2.8 Q Labor 2.0Q Greens 0.5Q I4C 0.4Q - that could be 3-2 on current numbers but a way to go to see how much flow there is between the left parties.

Ginninderra: Labor 2.2 quotas Liberal 1.6 Greens 0.8 I4C 0.5.  That might look like a fight between Liberals and I4C but depends on the breakdown of Liberal candidates.  Looking at that while the Liberal vote is a bit lopsided with Peter Cain, the I4C vote is spread between candidates, could be leakage issues.  

Kurrajong: Labor 2.2 Q Lib 1.5 Greens 1.0 I4C 0.8.  Independents for Canberra looking good there to take the Green seat at this stage (Liberals are the main opposition)

Murrumbidgee: Labor 2 Liberals 2.2 Carrick 0.7 Greens 0.5 - need to see the distribution but Carrick ahead on primaries at this stage

Yerrabi: Labor 1.9 Liberals 2.3 Greens 0.7 I4C 0.5 so could be a race for the last seat between Greens and I4C with Greens ahead at the moment.  

More when we get the distributions but early on we could be somewhere in the general region of 10-10-3-1-1.  A lot of those are extremely rubbery at this stage!

6:35 Votes briefly appeared on the screen but I am unsure if they were real!  They may have been test votes.  

6:31 No figures yet but I will note the ABC coverage (not Antony Green, one of the reporters) just repeated a misleading claim by Fiona Carrick that in 2020 after being 4th on primaries she lost due to "preferences".  Carrick was 4th on candidate primaries but considering party quotas she was in effect a distant 6th since ALP and Liberals each had two quotas and the Greens were way ahead of her.  Based on that and given that preferences always flow strongly within a party (such that non-flowing preferences are treated as leakage) she needed an extremely strong flow of minor candidate and surplus major party preferences to beat the Greens, which didn't happen.  It had very little to do with her being in the ungrouped column.

6:22 ACT elections page intermittently overloaded/down in last few minutes.  

6:15 ABC reporting Labor sources are not bothered about how things have gone, doubt they are losing any seats (which needs some large swings) and have some hopes they could gain one or two.  No polling was cited so we'll see.  The Greens seem to be the party most bracing themselves for perhaps two or three losses.  

6:03 Right on cue we have a results page.  I'm afraid to leave the room in case 100,000 votes drop out of the sky!

5:45: This thing is on, and I've learned my lesson from the previous fast pace of ACT election night and had dinner already.  

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Intro (midday) 

Welcome to my coverage of the ACT's election counting night.  I did a preview of this election a few weeks ago and was hoping we might see a poll in the time since, but none has appeared; this election joins ACT 2016 in failing to attract a single public poll.   To summarise the campaign: scrappy all round; we will see who scrapped best.  

ACT elections are notable for the speed at which things happen on the night.  Very early on the night - even this time in the first hour if the counting schedule is followed - we'll get a provisional distribution based on the electronic votes cast at prepolling.  This gives us what would be the final result if those votes are representative.  Then over the coming days the task is to track how representative those votes are or are not, and how much that could affect the close seats that remain,  Late at night there is a second distribution that includes electronic votes cast on the day.

The indications are that prepoll will be not as large in 2024 (about half the actual vote) and this could provide some room for things to move around, at least between the first and second distributions.  But we should get a very good idea quite early of where this is headed and especially what non-Green crossbench challengers are competitive, if any.  

In 2020 Labor on average dropped about 0.8% per electorate from the second distribution to the final result with the Liberals gaining around 0.6% and the Greens varying by electorate (gaining 0.5% in Kurrajong but dropping a little in most others).  It should be this year that there will be more on the day paper votes and that this will reduce the break back to the Liberals, which is mainly caused by postals.

As each provisional distribution drops it may take me several minutes to analyse it and post comments.  There will be primary votes being manually counted on the night that won't be distributed as preferences today and I will aim to assess how much these votes should be expected to shift the outcomes in the distributions (if at all).  

I am contractually obliged at each ACT election to remind readers of the extremely wonky Ginninderra Effect.  This is a thing that happens at ACT and Tasmanian elections where sometimes a party that appears to be behind another based on raw primary totals in the race for a seat, nonetheless beats it by spreading its vote evenly enough between two candidates that the lone remaining candidate for the other party gets excluded and loses.  It's a particular hazard for Greens and independents and could be hungering for its next victim tonight.  

A reminder I'm on double duty with the NSW by-elections though ACT will be my first priority.