South Australia Postcount 2026: Finniss

FINNISS (Lib vs ALP 6.7%, Lib vs IND 0.7%)

David Basham (Lib) vs Lou Nicholson (IND) 

Nicholson wins from fourth position on primaries.  Unprecedented in state and federal elections

(Link to tallyboard thread)

The Victor Harbour/Goolwa seat of Finniss sees a similarly messy count to Kavel with four candidates with currently very similar primary votes, as I start this thread with the prepoll not yet in and sadly only 33.1% of enrolment counted.  It may be very different after prepoll and it was very different in 2022.  On the night Lou Nicholson was on 54.7% 2CP vs Basham and the doubt seemed to be would she make the final two or not.  She ended up making the final two but very poor numbers on prepolls and absents resulted in Basham winning (just) 50.7-49.3.  Now, the rematch ...

As with Kavel this is another seat where nobody has a quarter of the primary vote.  Currently One Nation's Greg Powell (23.6%) leads Basham by six votes, with Nicholson on 20.5% and Phoebe Redington (ALP) on 17.6%.  The Greens have 7.2% and the top of the ballot paper, and have recommended preferences to Nicholson.  The others are Bron Lewis (a tealish sounding independent on 4.3%), Animal Justice 1.6%, Aus Family 1.2% Fair Go 0.4%.  

On the current primary numbers Nicholson will easily remain in third ahead of Labor and then should comfortably get enough of their preferences to make the final two.  At that point if her opponent is Basham she leads 57.7-42.3 in the counted booths, which I estimate to come down to 57.2-42.8 once the two booths without 2CP counts (Goolwa Central and Mount Compass) are included.  That would by any normal standards be enough, though Poll Bludger predicts enough of the 2022 postcount difference to repeat to bring it down to 52.3-47.7.

Especially with the extra favourable factors that Matt Schultz doesn't have in Kavel, I think the risk of even a bad postcount bumping Nicholson to fourth after preferences is low (fourth on primaries and then winning anyway would be fun since this has never happened in a state election!) and that it is very likely Labor will be excluded in fourth.  However with Basham and Powell basically tied and not that many preferences likely to reach either while being thrown three way to Nicholson, it's not at all clear which of Basham and Powell is Nicholson's real opponent here.  Some sort of threat to Nicholson might exist if it was actually Powell who makes the final two and then the Liberal flow to Powell was much stronger than the other way around, but how to vote cards notwithstanding I'm not sure why that would be so.   A 3CP count might be needed at some point to determine if Powell actually makes the final two, though if he falls any real distance behind Basham then he's almost certainly not winning even if he does.

At the moment this looks good for Nicholson (better than last time at the same point) and she could be a winner from third!  However given that this is a complex count and so incomplete it should be further monitored.  

Sunday 22nd 6:30 pm: Finally we have prepolls in Finniss and Basham has done well on them, to lead with 27.0% from Powell 22.0% Nicholson 19.3% Redington 18.0%.  That eliminates Powell from contention as he will not catch Basham and will be excluded in third.  72.0% of enrolment now counted.  The prepolls being so strong for Basham, even if I assume Nicholson's preference share in them falls to 60% I still have her ahead 53.3-46.7 which wouldn't fall over on the relatively small amount of counting to add.  So the main issue here seems to be confirmation that Nicholson is actually third, meaning a 4CP throw of minor candidate preferences would be more useful than a 3CP now!

Tuesday 24th: Casey Briggs reports: "The electoral commission has done an indicative preference throw in the early voting centre in Finniss to identify if Lou Nicholson will be overtaken by Labor. She gains on Labor in that booth, and so will go on to make the final two and win against Liberal David Basham."  The Finniss EVC (Victor Harbour) is reasonably representative and actually a slightly below par booth for Nicholson (also for the Greens for what it's worth) - on this basis I'm now treating this as an expected Nicholson win at the second attempt, but I will keep an eye on the remaining counting.

Thursday 26th: Nicholson only 71 votes above Labor, can she do it and fall below them and win from fourth? 

Saturday 28th: The main interest now in this contest is whether Nicholson finishes third or a historic fourth on primaries before presumably winning.  In figures available on the ABC site but not yet on ECSA she is now trailing Labor by 54 votes!

Monday 30th: Details of ECSA analysis have been posted by Antony Green.  It really looks like this is happening!

Tuesday 31st: IT IS DONE! Finally I have lived to see it.