Lyons Recount 2025

LYONS Hare-Clark vacancy for seat held by Rebecca White (ALP)
Cause of vacancy: resignation to run for federal parliament
Labor will win the recount, winnning candidate to be determined.

Casey Farrell vs Ben Dudman with Farrell leading into final exclusion.

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Updates to be posted in this section, scrolling to the top

COUNTING WILL CONTINUE TONIGHT UNTIL A RESULT IS KNOWN

7:40 FINAL - CASEY FARRELL WINS BY 242 VOTES.  Farrell made a small further gain on the last throw.  

5:35 And now we have our third different leader in two exclusions, Farrell jumps from third to first as McQueeney drops from first to third and is eliminated by just 60 votes!  Farrell leads by 196 with 2739 from McQueeney to throw! Dudman needs 53.6% of the McQueeney votes to win if there is no exhaust, but that is probably more like 54% (maybe even slightly more of non-exhausting votes).  We've seen some quite imbalanced splits on the first two throws but is there any reason to expect an imbalance in Dudman's favour here?  

4:18 Oh wow.  McQueeney has done so well on Batt's exclusion that she has jumped to the lead!  McQueeney 2247 Dudman 2184 Farrell 2175 and Goss is out by 67 votes on 2108.  Now Farrell has dropped to third and he needs to pass one of McQueeney or Dudman on this throw or he's out, but if geographic proximity is a guide these are more likely to go to Dudman - the other possibility is that we're still seeing a gender effect and McQueeney could even win.  (To a degree there's a geographic explanation for a strong flow from Batt to McQueeney, but not for why they didn't go to Farrell as well.)

That exclusion took just over an hour - not sure if we get a winner tonight or come back tomorrow.  

3:00 And then there were five.  Farrell was actually the biggest gainer at that exclusion, putting another 26 into Dudman's lead and now trailing by 27.  But now the real stuff starts: Edwin Batt 1448 to be distributed between: Dudman 1958 Farrell 1931 McQueeney 1837 and Goss 1609.  Goss needs to overtake McQueeney from 228 behind or he's next out.

2:31 McQueeney was indeed the biggest beneficiary, gaining 59 to 33 for Farrell and 23 for Dudman; Farrell trails by 53.  McQueeney might also gain on the next lot as they are also from a female candidate.  Then it will finally be on to the first of the three decisive Labor exclusions.  

1:50 Farrell gains another seven votes and trails by 63 with two minor exclusions to go.  This Greens one now of 279 votes could be more interesting.  Could be a pickup for McQueeney on these too off gender preferencing and an east coast connection to the Greens candidate.  

1:10 The second Greens exclusion done, the margin closes again, now to 70.  We now have the final SFF exclusion then the larger exclusions from Greens and JLN and then it's on to the serious stuff.  

11:40 Two more exclusions and Farrell closed by three votes off Houghton (Green) and five off Bigg (SFF) to trail by 74.  With Bigg there is a Derwent Valley connection, the gain off Greens might be more significant as I think Farrell is more likely to appeal to Greens-sympathetic White voters and could gain some more off the last two Greens exclusions.

10:27 Another exclusion and the gap is out to 82 votes

Tuesday 10:20 am: Scrubbed previous update as the first update was for a single exclusion.  The early exclusions containing very few votes will not reveal much.  Farrell gained another vote on the Offord exclusion and now trails by 81.  There are seven exclusions to go before the first Labor exclusion.

10:00 Only two exclusions were actually conducted and Farrell has gained on Dudman by a vote! He's 82 behind.

5:45 Recount primaries are posted and it's close!  The unknown votes have flowed mainly to the younger candidates and the female candidate and on recount primaries Dudman 20.0% leads Farrell 19.1% with McQueeney on 18.2% Goss 15.9% and Batt 14.4%.  The remaining 12.4% is scattered across ten candidates with Pyecroft (JLN) the largest on 4.1%.  I think it's most likely between the top two now on preferences (if one of them does get eliminated that could well assist the other one), starting with a tie for last place that had to be resolved by lot.  The first three exclusions will be conducted tonight but will have very little impact.    

5:10: No update visible yet.  

2 pm: The TEC advises an update is expected around mid-afternoon; this will be the recount primaries.  A final result is not expected today.  All five ALP candidates are contesting together with 10 non-ALP non-hopers (should there be a deposit for this?)  

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Today is the day the Tasmanian Electoral Commission commences the "recount" (officially Tasmanian for countback) for a seat in Lyons, vacated by former Labor leader Rebecca White after she resigned to run for the equivalent federal seat.  Labor will be getting some new blood in the next few days.  With parliament resuming tomorrow they would be keen for the recount to finish quickly so the new member can be sworn in.  The consent period for nominations closes at midday today with counting to begin immediately after; the TEC says "a final result is expected in the days to follow".  On past form I would be impressed if the recount is wrapped today (because of the number of votes and the potential for three large exclusions to be needed to decide the winner) but they rarely take longer than two days.  It may be that by the end of today we at least have a clear leader.  

Normally I would cover this on the same thread where I initially analysed the recount, but that one was way back in November so I've decided to bring this one to the top.  Updates will scroll to the top of the article when anything is known.

This is what I wrote in November:

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The recount will be based solely on the votes White had when elected, which is all her primary votes.  The fact that Richard Goss was the last Labor candidate standing in the original count is irrelevant.  The winner will surely be one of the five unsuccessful Labor candidates.  Based on White's cutup, it is known they will start the recount with at least the following votes:

Ben Dudman 12.3%
Casey Farrell 10.1%
Richard Goss 9.0%
Carole McQueeney 8.9%
Edwin Batt 8.3%

35.1% of White's votes flowed to Jen Butler who was elected and 16.4% leaked to non-Labor candidates (mostly Jacqui Lambie Network, Greens and Liberal candidates in fairly even proportions).  It is not known where any of these votes went next.   It would not be that surprising if the White-Butler votes helped McQueeney by including an element voting specifically for female Labor candidates.  Candidates from other parties can nominate for the recount but all of them will be cut out before any of the Labor candidates are, leaving as many Labor candidates as nominate to fight out the seat.  Then it will simply be a race on preferences to determine the winner.

For those trying to predict this mess it's worth knowing that the vote for Labor minor candidates was highly regionalised, with Farrell the highest scorer behind White in the Derwent Valley, McQueeney on the east coast, Batt in the Southern Midlands, Goss in the Northern Midlands  and Dudman in most of Meander Valley (though Goss did better in some Launceston area Meander Valley booths).  Four are councillors for these LGAs (the exception is Farrell).  I analysed the primary votes for these candidates weighted by how many votes White got in the booths and other vote groups where they got votes and on that analysis Goss came out slightly ahead of Dudman.  But it may be that voters who voted for White are more likely to be younger voters who also liked Dudman whereas Goss had more appeal to an older demographic, which could explain why Dudman gets more White preferences directly than Goss does.  (This factor can also help Farrell).  

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