2025 Tasmanian Postcount: Franklin

ALL NUMBERS HERE ARE UNOFFICIAL - CHECK THE TEC PAGE FOR OFFICIAL NUMBERS

FRANKLIN (2024 Result 3 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 1 IND)

SEATS WON (CALLED): 2 Liberal 2 Labor 1 Green 2 IND

SEAT WINNERS: Eric Abetz (Lib), Jacquie Petrusma (Lib), Dean Winter (ALP), Peter George (Ind), David O'Byrne (Ind), Rosalie Woodruff (Grn), Meg Brown (ALP)

SEAT LOST: Nic Street (Liberal)

IND (Peter George) gain from Liberal

Click here for link to tallyboard page with links to other postcounts as written

------------------------------------

Franklin looked like the most exciting seat in the leadup with two strong independents, the Liberals fighting to hold their three seats, Labor fighting to gain one and the Greens having come quite close to two in 2024.  Nobody expected the latter to repeat.  Towards election day the view that the Liberals would drop a seat to Peter George strengthened and this is what appears to have occurred.

On Sunday night with 72.3% of enrolment counted, the Liberals have 2.726 quotas, Labor 1.822, the Peter George ticket 1.389, the Greens 1.078 and O'Byrne 0.911.  Peter George has polled exceptionally well, holding nearly three-quarters of his federal election vote.  He and Kristie Johnston are the first non-proto-Green independents to top the poll in a seat since Reg Turnbull in Bass 1959.  

George's preferences will be very leaky - I have heard about a third go straight to Rosalie Woodruff, bypassing George's low-profile support cast.  Eric Abetz will either reach a quota on primaries or very early in the cutup (perhaps even off George's surplus) and then a long series of cuts from the bottom up will eventually elect in some order Winter, O'Byrne, Woodruff and Petrusma.  The final act of any significance is likely to be the exclusion of the third Labor candidate, at which point the second Labor candidate should go well clear of the Liberals' Nic Street,

Even if the primary vote gap between the parties disappears, the problem for the Liberals is preferences.  They are slightly more exposed to leakage from their ticket but this will probably be cancelled out by the Labor ticket being slightly leakier.  The big problem is the .467 quotas that at some stage will leave the Greens and George tickets.  While some of this will exhaust, what of it doesn't exhaust (probably at least two-thirds) will greatly help Labor against the Liberals.  If the gap between Petrusma and Street stays where it is then the Liberals have a slight advantage by being able to hold two candidates below quota, but that disappears once they get even 0.1 of a quota in preferences, and if they don't get that they can't win anyway.  So the only way a ticket split could help the Liberals is if Street catches up to Petrusma and past experience suggests if anything that she will pull away.  The Liberals have absolutely nowhere to get a preference advantage from and I don't think they could win from even stevens let alone from (notionally) 691 votes behind.  

There is a 749 vote gap for Labor's second seat between first-term incumbent Meg Brown and high-profile unionist Jess Munday, whose campaign was marked by unconvincing claims she was ineligible.  Such gaps are generally not closed.  There will be a large volume of Greens and George ticket preferences flowing into this battle however so I will keep an eye on what happens here, and am holding off calling this internal contest for the moment.  

The real tension here is that party outcast David O'Byrne is 135 votes ahead of the ALP leader Dean Winter, and could outpoll him.  There is no love lost between these two and we could be in for heavy duty trolling if the lead survives.  O'Byrne has been overshadowed a little by George here but 11.4% is a strong number in its own right and the combined major party vote has been even lower in Franklin than in Clark.

Monday 21st: Phone votes added today (counted as postals) did nothing for the Liberals, in fact they went backwards slightly.  I have heard of a large scrutineering sample where Labor beats the Liberals by 35 points on a 2PP basis off George preferences.   Some of that will get stuck with other candidates (a lot with the Greens but the split off them will be even stronger).  To be clear Franklin is not in play.  

Exciting Update: In the David O'Byrne - Dean Winter grudge match, O'Byrne's lead has been cut to 59.  I expect Winter will be elected before O'Byrne because he has three very low scoring ticketmates, so the battle is for primary vote bragging rights.  In 2021 Winter outpolled O'Byrne by 321, in 2024 easily.

Wednesday 23rd: O'Byrne vs Winter now down to 45!  I did some scrutineering of a few things irrelevant to the result today.  Firstly the Peter George ticket is so leaky that in the samples I saw, somewhat more of his votes were going to the Greens than staying with the ticket.  We will get a clearer idea next week when George's surplus is thrown.  Secondly I sampled 235 Greens votes for 2PP (defined by which major party a vote hits a candidate from first) and they broke 53.4% Labor 4.4% Liberal 42.4% exhaust (after reweighting), a very similar pattenr to Clark.  

Meg Brown is now 862 ahead of Jess Munday.  In all probability that's too much so I've put Brown in the winners list above but with a TBC just in case something very odd happens.  

Thursday 24th: Out of division prepoll added.  Meg Brown now over 900 ahead of Munday. Grudge match update: O'Byrne now 81 ahead of Winter. 

5:40 pm: Winter overtakes O'Byrne on postals, now 13 ahead!

Tuesday 29th: Final primaries are up and Winter has avoided a fate worse than death and dealing with the Greens combined - he has outpolled David O'Byrne by 18 votes.  In the other irrelevant close shave, Eric Abetz has missed quota on primaries by 17 votes and we now wait to see if he can get 0.72% of Peter George's surplus to cross quota before the exclusions start.  

1:40 pm: George's surplus is thrown and Abetz has crossed quota by two votes!  This will create a small surplus that will not take long and will be good for a fast count going forwards.  The George surplus split Greens 1059, George group 807, O'Byrne 211, Labor 176, Liberal 76 ungrouped 30.  However nearly all the votes going to the Greens go to Woodruff.  If George were to not serve out his term, the question would then be how many of the George-Woodruff votes flowed on to the other Greens (my observation was that most of them do) and how many unleak back to his own ticket.  

A note that I am not now tracking this seat closely but will add a note now and then as to how it is going.

Wednesday 30th 11:45 am: It's nearly lunchtime on the second day and Hans Willink is still in the count! Labor will drop back close to the Liberals' tally on leakage as their minor candidates are excluded (there was a 16% leak from Di Virgilio) but there is still .35 of a quota in votes to leave the Greens and George tickets which will heavily favour them.  O'Byrne, Winter and Woodruff are all getting close to election with O'Byrne ahead though the other two have ticketmates and should get in before him.  

12:00 Hannan (ALP) and Willik out.  13% leak off Hannan, not too bad.  O'Byrne unsurprisingly makes a large gain off Willink,  Winter has still to repass O'Byrne who is now just 332 shy of quota.  

12:44 Rayne Allinson (George group) now being excluded; it's likely Brian Chapman (Greens) will be next and that that will put Woodruff over quota.  

3:07 Woodruff is over quota and elected.  Winter probably isn't close enough to cross off Amelia Meyers and there is a possibility now that David O'Byrne can get in before him, would require a good performance off the George ticket and picking up some Liberal leaks before Kaspar Deane is excluded for O'Byrne to do that.  

5:10 Meyers excluded, now the first Liberal exclusion of Natasha Miller, which should be followed by Kirsten Bacon as the last of the Peter George group.  O'Byrne 219 to go for quota, Winter 314, could be two Liberals and Bacon before the next Labor throw puts Winter in.  Stumps day 2.  

Thursday 31st 10:15 After Miller, O'Byrne has 186 to go, Winter 305.  1460 of these, then Michele Howlett (Lib), and then it's not certain if Deane is out next or Josh Garvin (Lib).  

11:35 O'BYRNE ELECTED 4! Ouch, that's very embarrassing for Labor, David O'Byrne has got enough off the George ticket to be elected before Dean Winter.  

1:00 Deane is next excluded, this will elect Winter with a substantial surplus.  

2:05 Winter finally over the line.

3:20 Winter surplus done. Four exclusions to go: Garvin, Owen Fitzgerald, Munday (who Meg Brown has pulled further away from) and Dean Young.

4:20 Fitzgerald exclusion now.  About half of this should go to Labor with not much to the Liberals, that will put Labor close to two quotas. It will be interesting to see the eventual margin.  

6:20 I was seeing a "final for night" message with Fitzgerald votes still showing but Fitzgerald has been excluded, Now Young will be excluded and he will put Petrusma over quota and put Street ahead of Brown, but then Brown will easily overhaul the lead off Munday and that will be the end.  So Franklin will finish sometime tomorrow.  Stumps day 3.

Thursday 1st Aug 9:40: Petrusma has been elected.  

1:00 Franklin is over!  Meg Brown has been elected 7, the final margin is 1378 (1.88% = 0.94% swing to change).  There was very little doubt about this one on election night and none from the day after but this is closer than I thought it would be, Labor have been a little lacklustre on preferences here (a net gain of only 713 on Liberals despite 4131 leaving the George and Greens tickets) but they are home and have avoided the horror of 3-1-1-2.