There's apparently not all that much going on in the 2019 election postcount, where the only major dramas left at present appear to be which (probably) left party loses in the Queensland Senate and whether anyone can possibly avoid a recount in Macquarie. When I compare it to 2016, I'm quite surprised at how busy I'm not.
This means I have time to post something curious I've been meaning to post for some time. As is well known, the 2013 Senate count was not the Australian Electoral Commission's finest hour. In Western Australia, the original count had a tipping point between two candidates, neither of whom could win, but the resolution of which determined the final two seats. The loss of 1370 ballot papers meant that it could not be determined who had won, and as a result the entire 2013 WA Senate election had to be voided and rerun in 2014. This resulted in the resignations of the Electoral Commissioner and the Electoral Officer for Western Australia and major changes to the way ballot papers are handled. The farce also contributed to the death of Group Ticket Voting at federal level. Under the system we have now the tipping point would have been irrelevant and the lost ballots may well not have affected the outcome. Many other issues with the AEC's culture were identified in a review and many positive changes have been made.
Showing posts with label 2013 federal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2013 federal. Show all posts
Friday, May 24, 2019
Sunday, March 27, 2016
2016 Federal Election Seats Model: What 2PP Vote Does Labor Need To Win?
Advance Summary
1. This article seeks to model what two-party preferred vote Labor would on average need to win the 2016 federal election, based on known information about personal vote advantages, retirements and optionally state-level federal polling.
2. A simple reading of the Mackerras pendulum projects Labor as requiring about 50.3% 2PP to form government and 50.55% to govern in majority.
3. However, the pendulum is prone to over-predict how many seats a party will gain for a given swing if that party lost many seats at the previous election.
4. The reason for this is that the new personal votes of sitting MPs in marginal seats make them more difficult to defeat.
5. With this considered, my current model estimates that Labor requires a 50.9% two-party preferred for an even chance of forming government at all, or 51.4% for a 50-50 chance of a majority.
6. These numbers are estimates only and it is possible Labor could form government with a slightly lower figure or fail to form government with a slightly higher one.
7. These numbers also don't take into account the possibility of a substantial number of new non-Green crossbenchers in the Lower House, as it is not possible to model the chances of that happening yet.
1. This article seeks to model what two-party preferred vote Labor would on average need to win the 2016 federal election, based on known information about personal vote advantages, retirements and optionally state-level federal polling.
2. A simple reading of the Mackerras pendulum projects Labor as requiring about 50.3% 2PP to form government and 50.55% to govern in majority.
3. However, the pendulum is prone to over-predict how many seats a party will gain for a given swing if that party lost many seats at the previous election.
4. The reason for this is that the new personal votes of sitting MPs in marginal seats make them more difficult to defeat.
5. With this considered, my current model estimates that Labor requires a 50.9% two-party preferred for an even chance of forming government at all, or 51.4% for a 50-50 chance of a majority.
6. These numbers are estimates only and it is possible Labor could form government with a slightly lower figure or fail to form government with a slightly higher one.
7. These numbers also don't take into account the possibility of a substantial number of new non-Green crossbenchers in the Lower House, as it is not possible to model the chances of that happening yet.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Senate Reform Has Been Passed
It's all over bar the High Court challenge(s). On Friday, the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016 finally passed both houses of parliament and was quickly whisked off to receive royal assent.
I've never been a fan of the now presumed-dead group ticket system, but my own campaigning to change it really dates from 30 August 2013. On that day I discovered that the Family First candidate who had a dream run on the Tasmanian preference allocations, including from Labor, the Greens and various left micros, was an anti-gay extremist. There was a high risk that socially progressive voters innocently voting above the line for their preferred parties would elect someone whose views would horrify them. So I wrote this article. In the end the disaster was avoided by just 821 votes.
I found it was uphill work convincing people to vote from 1 to 54 below the line (let alone the number of squares required in the larger states!) and that party operatives were concerned that I might cause their voters to vote informally. Around the same time the Truth Seeker site was predicting Senate chaos with numerous micro-party wins based on tight preference flows between micro-parties.
What was most concerning, when the votes were finally counted, was not just that Truth Seeker had been right in a big picture sense, but also that the micro-parties that actually won or nearly won were frequently those that were not even on the radar of those trying to model the election in advance. Trying to alert people to the consequences of their preference flows and do background checking on which micro-party Senators were going to win was a nightmare when not even expert modellers and not even preference whisperers could determine which micro-parties were going to get up. Other results of the 2013 election showed that the system was not only absurd on a massive scale, but also a sovereign risk. The voiding of the WA election would not have happened under the same circumstances but with voter-directed preferences.
I've never been a fan of the now presumed-dead group ticket system, but my own campaigning to change it really dates from 30 August 2013. On that day I discovered that the Family First candidate who had a dream run on the Tasmanian preference allocations, including from Labor, the Greens and various left micros, was an anti-gay extremist. There was a high risk that socially progressive voters innocently voting above the line for their preferred parties would elect someone whose views would horrify them. So I wrote this article. In the end the disaster was avoided by just 821 votes.
I found it was uphill work convincing people to vote from 1 to 54 below the line (let alone the number of squares required in the larger states!) and that party operatives were concerned that I might cause their voters to vote informally. Around the same time the Truth Seeker site was predicting Senate chaos with numerous micro-party wins based on tight preference flows between micro-parties.
What was most concerning, when the votes were finally counted, was not just that Truth Seeker had been right in a big picture sense, but also that the micro-parties that actually won or nearly won were frequently those that were not even on the radar of those trying to model the election in advance. Trying to alert people to the consequences of their preference flows and do background checking on which micro-party Senators were going to win was a nightmare when not even expert modellers and not even preference whisperers could determine which micro-parties were going to get up. Other results of the 2013 election showed that the system was not only absurd on a massive scale, but also a sovereign risk. The voiding of the WA election would not have happened under the same circumstances but with voter-directed preferences.
Monday, February 22, 2016
Senate Reform: It's Finally On!
Today the Treasurer, Scott Morrison, introduced the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016 (see explanatory memorandum) to Parliament. This bill primarily reforms Senate voting to remove Group Ticket Voting and eliminate the broken preference-dealing system that led to many farcical outcomes at the 2013 election. The defects of that system have been covered exhaustively on here before (click the "senate reform" tab) and I will not discuss them further here. This article concerns the system in the new Bill, how it will work and whether it is any good. I expect to update this article over coming days as news and comments come to hand.
The Bill was read in the parliament today and debate was immediately adjourned. The Bill will now be scrutinised by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (JSCEM) with a reporting date of 2 March. Possibly the JSCEM scrutiny will still result in minor changes. After that it can be sent to the Senate, where barring anything unexpected it will pass with support from the Coalition, the Greens, Nick Xenophon and possibly others. Labor's stance on the Bill is not clear at this stage. The Australian Electoral Commission has said it will need three months to implement the changes, which in theory keeps a July double dissolution in play.
Friday, February 12, 2016
Can Required Multiple Preferencing Solve The Senate Reform Mess?
Senate reform has been a major focus of this site since the farcical outcomes of the 2013 Senate election. The massive gaming of the Senate system by preference-harvesting micro-parties resulted in candidates being elected from very low primary votes, in a candidate being elected because of confusion about party names, in one state's election having to be cancelled and rerun because of the loss of a relatively small number of votes, and countless other absurd things. Nearly two and a half years after that election, and almost two years after the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters delivered a unanimous report in favour of an alternative, we were, until very recently, still to see any serious commitment to fixing the disaster from either major party.
The JSCEM proposal was to scrap group ticket voting and instead allow voters to distribute their own preferences above or below the line, although if they did so below the line a minimum of six numbers would be required. Voters could continue to just vote 1 above the line, but if they did so then once all candidates from their chosen party were elected or excluded, their vote would exhaust from the count. This is very similar to the system used in the NSW Upper House.
The JSCEM proposal has come under a number of attacks, claiming it would unfairly exclude minor parties (wrong), that it would advantage the Coalition (wrong and wrong again), that it would permanently stop "progressive" control of the Senate (wrong), that the existing system is sound (wrong and wrong) and so on. Beyond the reality that there is no perfect solution, none of the attacks have had any merit at all, but there is still a lot of wariness of the JSCEM proposal, especially in Labor ranks.
The JSCEM proposal was to scrap group ticket voting and instead allow voters to distribute their own preferences above or below the line, although if they did so below the line a minimum of six numbers would be required. Voters could continue to just vote 1 above the line, but if they did so then once all candidates from their chosen party were elected or excluded, their vote would exhaust from the count. This is very similar to the system used in the NSW Upper House.
The JSCEM proposal has come under a number of attacks, claiming it would unfairly exclude minor parties (wrong), that it would advantage the Coalition (wrong and wrong again), that it would permanently stop "progressive" control of the Senate (wrong), that the existing system is sound (wrong and wrong) and so on. Beyond the reality that there is no perfect solution, none of the attacks have had any merit at all, but there is still a lot of wariness of the JSCEM proposal, especially in Labor ranks.
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Mackerras Piece Misleading On Senate Reform
As noted in the last part of my multi-volume series about people being Wrong On The Internet about Senate reform, nothing has happened publicly on this issue for some time. But erroneous op-eds attacking the JSCEM-proposed model continue to appear in the media now and then, and the latest to muddy the waters (again) is Malcolm Mackerras in the Canberra Times.
While the consensus of psephologists Australia-wide favours scrapping the current Group Ticket preferencing system that has been gamed to death by preference-harvesters and other exploiters of confusing ballot papers (while retaining above-the-line voting for one or more parties), Mackerras has held out against this from the start. Initially he argued that it would be acceptable to allow voters to stop after filling in 15 boxes below the line. As the debate has progressed he has shifted to supporting a requirement for a minimum of six boxes below the line, which he now describes as "the easy and right thing" to do.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Another Unsound Attack On Proposed Senate Reforms
Advance Summary
1. A recent article by a former NSW politician argues that proposed Senate reforms will create an effectively first-past-the-post system that advantages the Coalition and eliminates minor party candidates and independents.
2. The article exaggerates the impact of the proposed system on minor party candidates, since minor party candidates would have won at least three seats in 2013 under the proposed system.
3. While parties polling very low vote shares would not win without group ticket preferencing, this is not specifically because many votes would exhaust. Rather, it is because strong preference flows between obscure parties would not exist even if all voters assigned their own preferences.
4. The article's claims about the impact of exhausting votes on preference transfers from Green to Labor and vice versa are undermined by those transfers being much less often important in Senate than in House elections.
5. The article's assumption that it would always be an advantage to run joint tickets rather than split tickets (eg for the Liberals and Nationals, or for Labor and the Greens) is incorrect. Whether it would be better to run joint or split tickets would vary depending on party vote levels.
6. There is simply no reliable evidence that proposed reforms disadvantage any of the Coalition, Labor or the Greens, or any other force with serious support in any given state. They disadvantage who they are designed to disadvantage: preference-harvesters.
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1. A recent article by a former NSW politician argues that proposed Senate reforms will create an effectively first-past-the-post system that advantages the Coalition and eliminates minor party candidates and independents.
2. The article exaggerates the impact of the proposed system on minor party candidates, since minor party candidates would have won at least three seats in 2013 under the proposed system.
3. While parties polling very low vote shares would not win without group ticket preferencing, this is not specifically because many votes would exhaust. Rather, it is because strong preference flows between obscure parties would not exist even if all voters assigned their own preferences.
4. The article's claims about the impact of exhausting votes on preference transfers from Green to Labor and vice versa are undermined by those transfers being much less often important in Senate than in House elections.
5. The article's assumption that it would always be an advantage to run joint tickets rather than split tickets (eg for the Liberals and Nationals, or for Labor and the Greens) is incorrect. Whether it would be better to run joint or split tickets would vary depending on party vote levels.
6. There is simply no reliable evidence that proposed reforms disadvantage any of the Coalition, Labor or the Greens, or any other force with serious support in any given state. They disadvantage who they are designed to disadvantage: preference-harvesters.
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Sunday, September 13, 2015
Wonk Central: The Track Record Of Last-Election Preferences
NOTE: Updates for elections from 2016 on appear at the bottom of this article
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1. This article uses historic data to examine how good preference flows from the previous election are at predicting preference flows at any given federal election.
2. Last-election preferences have been an industry standard following various failures by and problems with the respondent-preference method, especially its total failure at the 2004 election.
3. Using a model of minor-party breakdowns similar to that used by most pollsters, this article looks at expected versus actual preference flows at all federal elections since 1955.
4. The quality of data available on preference flows is better for elections from 1983 onwards.
5. Since 1983, last-election preferences have predicted preference flows remarkably well at most elections.
6. However, last-election preferences substantially understated the flow to Labor at two elections in this time: 1990 and 2013.
7. The historical record of last-election federal preferences is so strong that claims that last-election preferences in polling are wrong should generally be treated with great caution (including now).
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Do Proposed Senate Reforms Advantage The Coalition?
(See also Would Senate Reforms Increase The Chance Of A Blocked Senate?)
Advance Summary
1. Concerns have recently been reported that the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters' proposed optional-preferencing Senate system may advantage parties other than Labor, especially the Coalition parties.
2. The reality is that Labor performs poorly under the current system and sometimes loses seats it deserves to win under it.
3. There is no historical, and no convincing theoretical, evidence that the Coalition loses more seats to micro-parties under the current system than Labor.
4. If anything there is some argument that the proposed changes improve the chances of Labor and the Greens acquiring at least a blocking majority in the Senate.
5. That argument, however, assumes that parties would attract the same vote shares under the new system, when the choice of that new system would actually discourage the scattering of much of the right-wing vote among a huge number of micro-parties.
6. All up there is no evidence that the proposed reforms disadvantage anyone, other than removing chances to be elected from micro-parties that don't deserve those chances anyway.
Advance Summary
1. Concerns have recently been reported that the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters' proposed optional-preferencing Senate system may advantage parties other than Labor, especially the Coalition parties.
2. The reality is that Labor performs poorly under the current system and sometimes loses seats it deserves to win under it.
3. There is no historical, and no convincing theoretical, evidence that the Coalition loses more seats to micro-parties under the current system than Labor.
4. If anything there is some argument that the proposed changes improve the chances of Labor and the Greens acquiring at least a blocking majority in the Senate.
5. That argument, however, assumes that parties would attract the same vote shares under the new system, when the choice of that new system would actually discourage the scattering of much of the right-wing vote among a huge number of micro-parties.
6. All up there is no evidence that the proposed reforms disadvantage anyone, other than removing chances to be elected from micro-parties that don't deserve those chances anyway.
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Comments On The Lambie/PUP Split
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| This is what Jacqui Lambie's Facebook page looked like before she joined PUP (image: @AutumnalMonk) |
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Optional Senate Preferencing: Not An ALP/Liberal/Green Stitch-Up
Advance Summary
1. This article welcomes the recent interim Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report into the Senate voting system and generally supports its recommendations.
2. One important issue in Senate voting reform not yet adequately addressed is the calculation of transfer values for surplus votes.
3. A recent article by Malcolm Mackerras claims that nearly all Senators elected in 2013 were elected by informed voter choice and that major parties are changing the system opportunistically while their vote is falling.
4. However, the Coalition's Senate vote only fell in 2013 because of defects in the current Senate system.
5. At least four and possibly as many as seven Senate outcomes in 2013 did not fairly reflect the will of the voters.
6. The idea that micro-parties combined should be entitled to seats in proportion to their total vote share assumes that micro-party voters very strongly prefer other micro-parties generally to the bigger parties.
7. Analysis of actual Lower House micro-party preference flows shows that any such assumption is false.
1. This article welcomes the recent interim Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters report into the Senate voting system and generally supports its recommendations.
2. One important issue in Senate voting reform not yet adequately addressed is the calculation of transfer values for surplus votes.
3. A recent article by Malcolm Mackerras claims that nearly all Senators elected in 2013 were elected by informed voter choice and that major parties are changing the system opportunistically while their vote is falling.
4. However, the Coalition's Senate vote only fell in 2013 because of defects in the current Senate system.
5. At least four and possibly as many as seven Senate outcomes in 2013 did not fairly reflect the will of the voters.
6. The idea that micro-parties combined should be entitled to seats in proportion to their total vote share assumes that micro-party voters very strongly prefer other micro-parties generally to the bigger parties.
7. Analysis of actual Lower House micro-party preference flows shows that any such assumption is false.
Monday, April 14, 2014
JSCEM Comes To Hobart
Just a quick note that the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters will be holding hearings into the 2013 Federal Election this Wednesday morning in Parliament House. Here's the star-studded lineup:
The hearings are open to the public, unless the Committee grants a request from a witness to go in camera so they can disclose sensitive information. They are also expected to be broadcast on the Parliament House website (I'm assuming this is the federal one).
The hearings are open to the public, unless the Committee grants a request from a witness to go in camera so they can disclose sensitive information. They are also expected to be broadcast on the Parliament House website (I'm assuming this is the federal one).
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
PUP's "Internal Polling" Claims Are Ludicrous
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| Porcupine Fish Award for Ultra-Fishy Polling (image credit) |
Clive Palmer has claimed to have internal polling showing the Palmer United Party on track to win the Tasmanian election. The claim that PUP polling shows any such thing should not be taken even remotely seriously because:
1. The level of detail concerning this "poll" that has been released is grossly inadequate.
2. The poll was not carried out by a neutral polling firm or even one with any demonstrated record of competence.
3. Many Palmer United "internal polling" claims in the leadup to the federal election were shown to be wildly excessive by the actual results.
Friday, November 29, 2013
2013 Federal Election: Best And Worst Pollsters
Ideally I would have written this article a few weeks after the election, while debates about the quality of polling before the election were still fresh in everyone's minds. It seems a world away now but earlier this year there were actually plenty of people arguing that the day of the landline was done, that online and mobile polling were the way to go and that Palmer and Katter supporters would preference Labor in droves thus making the election much, much closer than all those pesky polls said.
But now ...
This was, in general, a pretty good election for the pollsters (most of them anyway) and a bad election for those who wanted to outguess them.
For basic information about the different polls and their methods, and a lot of general stuff about polling methods and debate surrounding them, you may find the recently updated Field Guide To Australian Opinion Polls useful.
I'll consider pollster quality in three categories:
But now ...
This was, in general, a pretty good election for the pollsters (most of them anyway) and a bad election for those who wanted to outguess them.
For basic information about the different polls and their methods, and a lot of general stuff about polling methods and debate surrounding them, you may find the recently updated Field Guide To Australian Opinion Polls useful.
I'll consider pollster quality in three categories:
Thursday, November 28, 2013
2013 Federal Election Results Finalised ... Finally!
The AEC has finally released the 2PP results for the various non-classic divisions at the 2013 election and hence the final 2PP result nationally. Results can be seen here.
The final 2PP result is 53.49% to the Coalition and 46.51% to the ALP. This is lower than projections based on expected results in the non-classic divisions (something like 53.6 to 53.7 was considered most likely). It's probable that a reason for the difference from what was expected was that more National Party votes were distributed in three-corner contests than in 2010, especially because of the loss of O'Connor to the Liberals. Nationals votes leak more to Labor ahead of the Liberals (24.6%) than Liberal votes leak to Labor ahead of the Nationals (9.2%). In the case of O'Connor, this produces a swing "to" Labor in the 2PP result, caused solely by the Liberals rather than the Nationals winning the seat.
The final 2PP result is 53.49% to the Coalition and 46.51% to the ALP. This is lower than projections based on expected results in the non-classic divisions (something like 53.6 to 53.7 was considered most likely). It's probable that a reason for the difference from what was expected was that more National Party votes were distributed in three-corner contests than in 2010, especially because of the loss of O'Connor to the Liberals. Nationals votes leak more to Labor ahead of the Liberals (24.6%) than Liberal votes leak to Labor ahead of the Nationals (9.2%). In the case of O'Connor, this produces a swing "to" Labor in the 2PP result, caused solely by the Liberals rather than the Nationals winning the seat.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Senate Reform: Change This System, But To What?
As noted at the top of the previous post, the pace of new material will be slow for the next few weeks because of work commitments, but there will still be new posts from time to time. Aggregate, Fairfax and WA Senate updates may also be a bit slow - I'll be aiming for daily, in the evenings (when there is actually anything to report), but don't guarantee to meet that target.
The Senate post-count isn't over yet as we've barely started the laborious WA Senate recount, which may well be followed by a court case depending on the margins and the outcome. News on that process will be posted here. But the results are final enough to make some observations on what the elections told us about the faults of the current Senate electoral system. There will be a standard Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters review of the election and this is likely to pave the way for a process leading to reform including opportunities for public submissions and hearings. Now is a good time for those interested in reform to be discussing ideas and priorities for alternatives to the current system.
In my view, the overwhelming priority is the abolition of group-ticket voting. The various alternatives have their strengths and weaknesses, but all of them pale into insignificance compared to the importance of having preferences directed (or perhaps in cases exhausted) through the actions (or inactions) of voters, rather than by preference deals between parties.
The Senate post-count isn't over yet as we've barely started the laborious WA Senate recount, which may well be followed by a court case depending on the margins and the outcome. News on that process will be posted here. But the results are final enough to make some observations on what the elections told us about the faults of the current Senate electoral system. There will be a standard Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters review of the election and this is likely to pave the way for a process leading to reform including opportunities for public submissions and hearings. Now is a good time for those interested in reform to be discussing ideas and priorities for alternatives to the current system.
In my view, the overwhelming priority is the abolition of group-ticket voting. The various alternatives have their strengths and weaknesses, but all of them pale into insignificance compared to the importance of having preferences directed (or perhaps in cases exhausted) through the actions (or inactions) of voters, rather than by preference deals between parties.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
WA Senate Squeaker
Original Provisional Result: Pratt (ALP) and Wang (PUP) defeat Ludlam (Green) and Dropulich (Sports) by 14 votes at key exclusion.
Recount: Recount of above the line and informal votes granted Oct 10. Recount ran from Oct 17 to Nov 1. Various corrections were made but 1370 votes were lost, could not be rechecked, and were excluded from the recount.
Declared Result: Ludlam (Green) and Dropulich (Sports) declared winners by 12 votes at key exclusion.
But There's A Problem: The lost votes would have advantaged Pratt (ALP) and Wang (PUP) by 13 votes, meaning that if there were no errors in the counting of those votes, Pratt (ALP) and Wang (PUP) could have won by one vote.
Where to from here? Outcome referred to Court of Disputed Returns by AEC requesting that election be ruled void. Petitions also filed by Zhenya Wang (PUP) and Simon Mead (ALP state secretary). The arguments for voiding the election were accepted and the election was ruled void, triggering a full WA Senate by-election to be held on April 5 under the existing system.
Updates to this post appear with the newest at the bottom.
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Just a post to explain what is going on with the Western Australian Senate count to those not already aware of it. The button was pressed today on the most exciting of the eight Senate post-counts.
Through the complex process of modelling the outcome undertaken by Truth Seeker, Antony Green and others, one point of the long list of exclusions of minor candidates became increasingly crucial and incredibly close. That point concerned which of the Shooters and Fishers and the Australian Christians was excluded first. Neither of these parties had the slightest chance of winning, but because of their different group voting ticket preferences, which one was excluded first would have a great impact on the outcome. If the Australian Christians were excluded, this would then lead to the exclusion of the Sports Party's Wayne Dropulich, and this would in turn result in Labor's Louise Pratt and Palmer United Party's Zhenya Wang getting the final two seats. If the Shooters and Fishers were excluded, this would then lead to Dropulich winning on a preference snowball and taking the Greens' Scott Ludlam with him.
The Shooters and Fishers had a lead on the ABC Calculator, but it assumes all votes are above the line votes, and ignores the impact of below the line votes that do not follow the script. If only reliably "locked in" votes (ticket votes and a share of votes from a party's second and subsequent candidates) were included then the Christians had a wafer-thin lead. But modelling by Truth Seeker here suggested that the Shooters and Fishers were slightly more likely than not to do just well enough on below-the-lines from other parties to beat the Christians at this point. The final Truth Seeker projected margin was 54 votes to S+F, but with a large degree of uncertainty, such that "Is this significantly different to zero? No."
Recount: Recount of above the line and informal votes granted Oct 10. Recount ran from Oct 17 to Nov 1. Various corrections were made but 1370 votes were lost, could not be rechecked, and were excluded from the recount.
Declared Result: Ludlam (Green) and Dropulich (Sports) declared winners by 12 votes at key exclusion.
But There's A Problem: The lost votes would have advantaged Pratt (ALP) and Wang (PUP) by 13 votes, meaning that if there were no errors in the counting of those votes, Pratt (ALP) and Wang (PUP) could have won by one vote.
Where to from here? Outcome referred to Court of Disputed Returns by AEC requesting that election be ruled void. Petitions also filed by Zhenya Wang (PUP) and Simon Mead (ALP state secretary). The arguments for voiding the election were accepted and the election was ruled void, triggering a full WA Senate by-election to be held on April 5 under the existing system.
Updates to this post appear with the newest at the bottom.
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| Democracy in action! Screenshot of the critical point of the preference distribution. |
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Just a post to explain what is going on with the Western Australian Senate count to those not already aware of it. The button was pressed today on the most exciting of the eight Senate post-counts.
Through the complex process of modelling the outcome undertaken by Truth Seeker, Antony Green and others, one point of the long list of exclusions of minor candidates became increasingly crucial and incredibly close. That point concerned which of the Shooters and Fishers and the Australian Christians was excluded first. Neither of these parties had the slightest chance of winning, but because of their different group voting ticket preferences, which one was excluded first would have a great impact on the outcome. If the Australian Christians were excluded, this would then lead to the exclusion of the Sports Party's Wayne Dropulich, and this would in turn result in Labor's Louise Pratt and Palmer United Party's Zhenya Wang getting the final two seats. If the Shooters and Fishers were excluded, this would then lead to Dropulich winning on a preference snowball and taking the Greens' Scott Ludlam with him.
The Shooters and Fishers had a lead on the ABC Calculator, but it assumes all votes are above the line votes, and ignores the impact of below the line votes that do not follow the script. If only reliably "locked in" votes (ticket votes and a share of votes from a party's second and subsequent candidates) were included then the Christians had a wafer-thin lead. But modelling by Truth Seeker here suggested that the Shooters and Fishers were slightly more likely than not to do just well enough on below-the-lines from other parties to beat the Christians at this point. The final Truth Seeker projected margin was 54 votes to S+F, but with a large degree of uncertainty, such that "Is this significantly different to zero? No."
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Labor And The Greens Shall Not Complain About Family First
(Update 1 Oct: Bob Day has been elected as expected.)
You'll see a lot of this sort of thing in the next six years if, as expected, Family First's Bob Day gets up in South Australia:
For those who don't know, Helen Polley is a Labor Senator for Tasmania, albeit a very "socially conservative" one. Now, I have no problem with the proposition that there may be some real nutters in the seemingly soft and fuzzy Family First fold. My open question then to Senator Polley is this:
If Day and Fielding are indeed so bad, why did your party preference both of them?
You'll see a lot of this sort of thing in the next six years if, as expected, Family First's Bob Day gets up in South Australia:
For those who don't know, Helen Polley is a Labor Senator for Tasmania, albeit a very "socially conservative" one. Now, I have no problem with the proposition that there may be some real nutters in the seemingly soft and fuzzy Family First fold. My open question then to Senator Polley is this:
If Day and Fielding are indeed so bad, why did your party preference both of them?
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Tasmanian Senate Seat Goes To The Button - Lambie (PUP) Wins
(Admin note to commenters: I have just done a cleanout of duplicate comments (where people submitted multiple copies of a comment). If you get an email saying your comment was deleted, please don't feel rejected! One comment from a few months back was rejected for being off-topic but there will be a thread on the matter it relates to soon.)
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This is the thread where I will post the result and details of the preference distribution that determines the last Tasmanian Senate seat. The thread that has been following the late Senate count and attempting to model the outcome has been extremely popular but has also become far too long and I want to keep the analysis of (i) the known result, once it is known (ii) any recount action that might be necessary, separate.
My thanks to the AEC for their very quick provision of preference distribution information.
Preview
On Wednesday at about 10 am the AEC's computer system will be commanded to perform a complete distribution of preferences for the Tasmanian Senate. Liberal Senators Richard Colbeck and David Bushby, Labor Senators Carol Brown and Catryna Bilyk and Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson will be re-elected. Unless all modellers modelling this count have somehow missed something surprising and important, Labor Senator Lin Thorp will lose her seat, which will go to one of Palmer United Party candidate Jacqui Lambie, Liberal candidate Sally Chandler or Sex Party candidate Robbie Swan.
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This is the thread where I will post the result and details of the preference distribution that determines the last Tasmanian Senate seat. The thread that has been following the late Senate count and attempting to model the outcome has been extremely popular but has also become far too long and I want to keep the analysis of (i) the known result, once it is known (ii) any recount action that might be necessary, separate.
My thanks to the AEC for their very quick provision of preference distribution information.
Preview
On Wednesday at about 10 am the AEC's computer system will be commanded to perform a complete distribution of preferences for the Tasmanian Senate. Liberal Senators Richard Colbeck and David Bushby, Labor Senators Carol Brown and Catryna Bilyk and Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson will be re-elected. Unless all modellers modelling this count have somehow missed something surprising and important, Labor Senator Lin Thorp will lose her seat, which will go to one of Palmer United Party candidate Jacqui Lambie, Liberal candidate Sally Chandler or Sex Party candidate Robbie Swan.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Too Much Information: The Mixed Performance of Seat Betting Markets At The Federal Election
Advance Summary
1. Seat betting markets, considered by some to be highly predictive, returned an indifferent final result at the 2013 federal election, overpredicting the number of Labor losses by at least seven and predicting fourteen seats incorrectly.
2. Better results were achieved not only by local/state projections based on polling data but also could have been achieved by a simple reading of the national polls.
3. Seat betting markets in the final week most likely misread the election because of an overload of contradictory data. They placed too much emphasis on local-level polling and internal polling rumours and too little on national polling.
4. Prior to the final week of the campaign, however, seat betting markets performed well in projecting an uncertain situation that was difficult to model.
5. Seat betting markets were most accurate immediately following the return of Kevin Rudd. However this probably reflects on the modelling skills of bookmakers rather than punters.
6. Modellers wanting to know what seat totals betting markets expect should look at direct seat total markets rather than attempting to derive that information via complex and uncertain processes from seat betting markets.
7. Final direct seat total markets were very accurate.
1. Seat betting markets, considered by some to be highly predictive, returned an indifferent final result at the 2013 federal election, overpredicting the number of Labor losses by at least seven and predicting fourteen seats incorrectly.
2. Better results were achieved not only by local/state projections based on polling data but also could have been achieved by a simple reading of the national polls.
3. Seat betting markets in the final week most likely misread the election because of an overload of contradictory data. They placed too much emphasis on local-level polling and internal polling rumours and too little on national polling.
4. Prior to the final week of the campaign, however, seat betting markets performed well in projecting an uncertain situation that was difficult to model.
5. Seat betting markets were most accurate immediately following the return of Kevin Rudd. However this probably reflects on the modelling skills of bookmakers rather than punters.
6. Modellers wanting to know what seat totals betting markets expect should look at direct seat total markets rather than attempting to derive that information via complex and uncertain processes from seat betting markets.
7. Final direct seat total markets were very accurate.
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